Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Mildly interesting tweet, given recent posts on supermarkets..
Samuel Jenkinson @samueljenkinson Meat and fish in British supermarkets is actually better than in Belgium. Not just by price, but also choice. It’s actually enraging me walking around how much more I pay for everything and what just isn’t available. 4:14 PM · Aug 26, 2021 from Hull, England·Twitter for iPhone https://twitter.com/samueljenkinson/status/1430911583073538048
Not found anywhere in the world which has as good a mix of range and prices as British supermarkets. It is not difficult to find cheaper or better, but yet to find both together.
There was a very touching story, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, about some early Romanian tourists visiting a random British supermarket. A big Tesco near Swindon or a Sainsburys in Glasgow or whatever. The Romanians burst into tears
Their concerned British hosts asked them ‘what upsets you’ expecting a political response. But the Romanians said they were crying with shock, tinged with delight. ‘There’s just so much of everything, and things we’ve never seen’
A modern western supermarket is an incredible thing. Unprecedented in human civilisation. All the greatest produce from all across the world. We take them for granted. And, yes, British supermarkets are some of the very best. Only the French (carrefour, etc) really rival them. I’ve not seen as good anywhere else
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Given that HS2 benefits the big cities and the biggest most of all it seems a strange argument.
Now he's correct that different people and different economic sectors have experienced covid in different ways - I've said before that the last year has been near normal on the suburban industrial estates ie totally different to the city centre offices.
But the workers on the suburban industrial estates travel by car not by train.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
Oh this is so frustrating.
I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong. In fact to do so wouldn't be a proof because two sets of different stats have different criteria so it wouldn't prove you wrong. It would prove absolutely nothing.
However what I did do was a proof by contradiction. I suggest you look it up.
It wasn't difficult because it was clear to everyone but you that you were comparing a subset of one set to the complete set of another set, which you just can't do.
Now none of this proves whether Grammar schools are better or worse than Comprehensives, so doesn't prove whether either of us is right. We both have different opinions and both are as valid as each other, but it does show that the assumption you came to from a valid stat was unfounded. It was mathematically wrong. It was unfactual. It was incorrect. It was not true. Now that is a provable fact.
You don't understand any of this do you?
Maths doesn't stop in the classroom in goes into real life and you can't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
Is it? What purpose do such stores serve today? Their clientele are dying.
The clientele might be dying, but in general it means homogenisation and loss of jobs disproportionately to a smaller group of online giants.
Saddening then. But presumably you've been to a high street in the last five years?
I must admit when my local small chain department (Tudor Williams) was due to close down. I popped in a couple of times.
It was like being in Are You Being Served? with a large number of staff keen to support your shopping experience, with a margin over most shops - let alone Amazon - of 20%. In its closing down sale I got 40% off and even then I didn't get a particularly good deal.
In that case at least it is pretty obvious that the store had been surviving on a dwindling group of older people who were less likely to shop online and more likely to pay a premium for the experience. its decline was, therefore, absolutely inevitable.
(Despite my reference to a 1970s sitcom I am in fact a verified young person (tm))
I would sometimes shop in a department store and be willing to pay 5-10% premium for a mix of it all being in the same place, a level of quality and being able to see and touch it as opposed to online. As you say the premium was actually 20%+, sometimes up to 50% to the best internet price. Unsustainable.
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Given that HS2 benefits the big cities and the biggest most of all it seems a strange argument.
Now he's correct that different people and different economic sectors have experienced covid in different ways - I've said before that the last year has been near normal on the suburban industrial estates ie totally different to the city centre offices.
But the workers on the suburban industrial estates travel by car not by train.
Also, why mention Burnley in relation to the eastern arm of HS2? I bet he's never been to Burnley.
A second Scottish independence referendum can take place if polling consistently shows 60 per cent of Scots desire a fresh vote, according to a Tory cabinet Minister.
Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, has revealed that Boris Johnson will grant powers to hold a referendum if polling for a referendum, not necessarily independence, is consistently at 60 per cent.
The figure builds on the recent statement from fellow Cabinet Minister Michael Gove, who is in charge of union policy, told the Sunday Mail that “if it is the case that there is clearly a settled will in favour of a referendum, then one will occur.”
Not just the Westminster govt - and an even tougher test:
A level of 60% support for Scottish independence over the period of a year has been identified as a benchmark in making the decision over a second referendum, senior SNP sources say.
The figure is a "trigger point", but will not be publicly acknowledged, sources told the BBC's John Pienaar.
Prof John Curtice said it was the level the party should be thinking about.
An SNP spokesman said there would only be a second referendum if there was clear evidence of a shift of opinion...."Six months of polls won't be enough," said a senior SNP figure, involved in the discussions.
In indyref2 polls it hasn't, Yes under 50% including don't knows in every poll, so little different from the 45% Yes of 2014.
Hence Sturgeon is not pushing for an indyref2 now or anytime soon
What’s the change for No since 2014?
Despite the fact only 38% of Scots voted for Brexit, No still leads most of the latest polls yes
I seriously doubt it had anything to do with Brexit and a lot more with Nicola as mother of the nation dominating the airwaves but yes had a lead for a chunk of last year and a revival in our second lockdown but the current trend seems to be against them.
Yes had a brief clear lead before the vaccinations, as you say not because of Brexit, which has now evaporated
20 straight polls over 8 months is a brief lead? Okeydokey.
Gone now tho, innit? No is ahead consistently, despite the ‘inevitable move to Yes amongst Scots blah blah’
What is it? Perhaps your 23% deficit, meaning you immediately become Venezuela on Indy? Or perhaps a secular shift caused by Brexit? We are again the offshore islanders?
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
Oh this is so frustrating.
I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong. In fact to do so wouldn't be a proof because two sets of different stats have different criteria so it wouldn't prove you wrong. It would prove absolutely nothing.
However what I did do was a proof by contradiction. I suggest you look it up.
It wasn't difficult because it was clear to everyone but you that you were comparing a subset of one set to the complete set of another set, which you just can't do.
Now none of this proves whether Grammar schools are better or worse than Comprehensives, so doesn't prove whether either of us is right. We both have different opinions and both are as valid as each other, but it does show that the assumption you came to from a valid stat was unfounded. It was mathematically wrong. It was unfactual. It was incorrect. It was not true. Now that is a provable fact.
You don't understand any of this do you?
Maths doesn't stop in the classroom in goes into real life and you can't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply.
You restarted this tedious argument this morning, so blame yourself.
'I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong.' No because you don't have any!
You asked me to produce figures showing selective areas did better than non selective areas on Oxbridge admission, not just comparing grammars and comps and I did
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
What would the point be, given you don’t accept facts that refute your arguments?
There rarely are any that do that, not that he ever even bothers posting facts anyway
The straits of Hormuz, the Ullapool Inverness ferry, the party status of Gwilym Lloyd George, the qualifications required to be an engineer, the Trump withdrawal from Afghanistan...
By ‘rarely’ do you mean less than twice a day on average?
HYUFD also seems to think Berlin is in Thuringia. Sadly misinformed.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
More a reflection of higher exam grades that meet the criteria for admission in independent and selective schools.
Mildly interesting tweet, given recent posts on supermarkets..
Samuel Jenkinson @samueljenkinson Meat and fish in British supermarkets is actually better than in Belgium. Not just by price, but also choice. It’s actually enraging me walking around how much more I pay for everything and what just isn’t available. 4:14 PM · Aug 26, 2021 from Hull, England·Twitter for iPhone https://twitter.com/samueljenkinson/status/1430911583073538048
Not found anywhere in the world which has as good a mix of range and prices as British supermarkets. It is not difficult to find cheaper or better, but yet to find both together.
There was a very touching story, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, about some early Romanian tourists visiting a random British supermarket. A big Tesco near Swindon or a Sainsburys in Glasgow or whatever. The Romanians burst into tears
Their concerned British hosts asked them ‘what upsets you’ expecting a political response. But the Romanians said they were crying with shock, tinged with delight. ‘There’s just so much of everything, and things we’ve never seen’
A modern western supermarket is an incredible thing. Unprecedented in human civilisation. All the greatest produce from all across the world. We take them for granted. And, yes, British supermarkets are some of the very best. Only the French (carrefour, etc) really rival them. I’ve not seen as good anywhere else
I used to regularly spend about a month each year in Normandy and shopped obviously at the supermarkets there. One big difference is that French supermarkets almost never had the promotional price reductions that we have here. In the UK you often see tubs of Haagen Dazs ice cream reduced from £5 to £3. In France it would always be about €6 per tub and never reduced.
The bakery sections of supermarkets in France are much better in the UK too. However, they are not a patch on the local boulangeries. I really miss at the moment fresh French baguette, you just can't seem to get something similar in the UK.
Being in Normandy by the sea the supermarkets there even had large water tanks filled with crabs and lobsters. I imagine there wouldn't be much demand for them in the UK!
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Edmundintokyo has some Trump-deranged infatuation with Biden, which has unfortunately turned him into an idiot (on this issue). It is sad. I hope and believe he will recover soon
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
A second Scottish independence referendum can take place if polling consistently shows 60 per cent of Scots desire a fresh vote, according to a Tory cabinet Minister.
Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, has revealed that Boris Johnson will grant powers to hold a referendum if polling for a referendum, not necessarily independence, is consistently at 60 per cent.
The figure builds on the recent statement from fellow Cabinet Minister Michael Gove, who is in charge of union policy, told the Sunday Mail that “if it is the case that there is clearly a settled will in favour of a referendum, then one will occur.”
Not just the Westminster govt - and an even tougher test:
A level of 60% support for Scottish independence over the period of a year has been identified as a benchmark in making the decision over a second referendum, senior SNP sources say.
The figure is a "trigger point", but will not be publicly acknowledged, sources told the BBC's John Pienaar.
Prof John Curtice said it was the level the party should be thinking about.
An SNP spokesman said there would only be a second referendum if there was clear evidence of a shift of opinion...."Six months of polls won't be enough," said a senior SNP figure, involved in the discussions.
In indyref2 polls it hasn't, Yes under 50% including don't knows in every poll, so little different from the 45% Yes of 2014.
Hence Sturgeon is not pushing for an indyref2 now or anytime soon
What’s the change for No since 2014?
Despite the fact only 38% of Scots voted for Brexit, No still leads most of the latest polls yes
I seriously doubt it had anything to do with Brexit and a lot more with Nicola as mother of the nation dominating the airwaves but yes had a lead for a chunk of last year and a revival in our second lockdown but the current trend seems to be against them.
Yes had a brief clear lead before the vaccinations, as you say not because of Brexit, which has now evaporated
20 straight polls over 8 months is a brief lead? Okeydokey.
Gone now tho, innit? No is ahead consistently, despite the ‘inevitable move to Yes amongst Scots blah blah’
What is it? Perhaps your 23% deficit, meaning you immediately become Venezuela on Indy? Or perhaps a secular shift caused by Brexit? We are again the offshore islanders?
Perplexing times for Nats
I’ll always love the paradox of Yoons simultaneously claiming that Yes would lose while crowing that BJ will never grant Indy ref II. So revealing psychologically.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
I don't mean right now, just some time between now and 2024.
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
1) the civil servants in the DfT don’t want it because they are essentially all mini-Marples obsessed with roads;
2) The Civil Servants in the Treasury don‘t want it because their jobs are being slated to be moved to the north-east when it’s opened.
This is entirely separate from the logistics and practicalities, and would hold good even if HS2 promised free Mars bars for all.
Add to which that Rishi is back in his comfort zone as Stingy Sunak.
And that HS2 East will do horrible things to the economics of Tesside Vote Houchen Airport, I imagine.
Ben Houchen International is already sinking. Ryanair have pulled out for Newcastle, Eastern have pulled out half their routes for Newcastle. A few summer holiday flights to Bulgaria does not a viable airport make.
He is a gobby wazzock though. Claimed that he personally had delivered the Middlesbrough station upgrades for the trains to London. Trains plural then gets dropped to train singular and he isn't to blame. Then Darlo timetable cuts announced he isn't to blame. He triumphs the Boro Hydrogen hub idea, then isn't to blame when Northern announce they're cutting all cross-Boro rail services as a precursor to the Houchen Hydrogen Bomb express.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
There is that - though as we've seen with targeted assassination of (for instance) Iranian militants, that doesn't mane it's not possible.
Mildly interesting tweet, given recent posts on supermarkets..
Samuel Jenkinson @samueljenkinson Meat and fish in British supermarkets is actually better than in Belgium. Not just by price, but also choice. It’s actually enraging me walking around how much more I pay for everything and what just isn’t available. 4:14 PM · Aug 26, 2021 from Hull, England·Twitter for iPhone https://twitter.com/samueljenkinson/status/1430911583073538048
Not found anywhere in the world which has as good a mix of range and prices as British supermarkets. It is not difficult to find cheaper or better, but yet to find both together.
There was a very touching story, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, about some early Romanian tourists visiting a random British supermarket. A big Tesco near Swindon or a Sainsburys in Glasgow or whatever. The Romanians burst into tears
Their concerned British hosts asked them ‘what upsets you’ expecting a political response. But the Romanians said they were crying with shock, tinged with delight. ‘There’s just so much of everything, and things we’ve never seen’
A modern western supermarket is an incredible thing. Unprecedented in human civilisation. All the greatest produce from all across the world. We take them for granted. And, yes, British supermarkets are some of the very best. Only the French (carrefour, etc) really rival them. I’ve not seen as good anywhere else
I once saw some American tourists fascinated to encounter fresh cranberries for the first time, in Waitrose by Gloucester Road tube. I also heard many years ago that American supermarkets are more likely to have 57 different brands of strawberry jam than 57 different flavours of jam. Whether that is still true I could not say, although I doubt it.
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Given that HS2 benefits the big cities and the biggest most of all it seems a strange argument.
Now he's correct that different people and different economic sectors have experienced covid in different ways - I've said before that the last year has been near normal on the suburban industrial estates ie totally different to the city centre offices.
But the workers on the suburban industrial estates travel by car not by train.
Well, it does if you assume it’s only about one set of tracks with one set of trains in isolation.
If you remember that for every HST moved off the current network to a new set of tracks around 3 pathways for local trains are freed up the calculation looks rather different.
A new HS2 station at Leeds, for example, would almost triple the capacity of the current Leeds station.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
Oh this is so frustrating.
I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong. In fact to do so wouldn't be a proof because two sets of different stats have different criteria so it wouldn't prove you wrong. It would prove absolutely nothing.
However what I did do was a proof by contradiction. I suggest you look it up.
It wasn't difficult because it was clear to everyone but you that you were comparing a subset of one set to the complete set of another set, which you just can't do.
Now none of this proves whether Grammar schools are better or worse than Comprehensives, so doesn't prove whether either of us is right. We both have different opinions and both are as valid as each other, but it does show that the assumption you came to from a valid stat was unfounded. It was mathematically wrong. It was unfactual. It was incorrect. It was not true. Now that is a provable fact.
You don't understand any of this do you?
Maths doesn't stop in the classroom in goes into real life and you can't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply.
You restarted this tedious argument this morning, so blame yourself.
'I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong.' No because you don't have any!
You asked me to produce figures showing selective areas did better than non selective areas on Oxbridge admission, not just comparing grammars and comps and I did
Para 1 - No I didn't. My message was addressed to Ian not you
Para 2 - Yep no understanding whatsoever. Tell me honestly, did you understand any of this stuff? Do you understand you can't just pick up stats and do what you do with them? Do you understand that by giving an example of where your assumption about the stat fails, means that the assumption is false. Do you understand any of this?
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
Mildly interesting tweet, given recent posts on supermarkets..
Samuel Jenkinson @samueljenkinson Meat and fish in British supermarkets is actually better than in Belgium. Not just by price, but also choice. It’s actually enraging me walking around how much more I pay for everything and what just isn’t available. 4:14 PM · Aug 26, 2021 from Hull, England·Twitter for iPhone https://twitter.com/samueljenkinson/status/1430911583073538048
Not found anywhere in the world which has as good a mix of range and prices as British supermarkets. It is not difficult to find cheaper or better, but yet to find both together.
There was a very touching story, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, about some early Romanian tourists visiting a random British supermarket. A big Tesco near Swindon or a Sainsburys in Glasgow or whatever. The Romanians burst into tears
Their concerned British hosts asked them ‘what upsets you’ expecting a political response. But the Romanians said they were crying with shock, tinged with delight. ‘There’s just so much of everything, and things we’ve never seen’
A modern western supermarket is an incredible thing. Unprecedented in human civilisation. All the greatest produce from all across the world. We take them for granted. And, yes, British supermarkets are some of the very best. Only the French (carrefour, etc) really rival them. I’ve not seen as good anywhere else
I used to regularly spend about a month each year in Normandy and shopped obviously at the supermarkets there. One big difference is that French supermarkets almost never had the promotional price reductions that we have here. In the UK you often see tubs of Haagen Dazs ice cream reduced from £5 to £3. In France it would always be about €6 per tub and never reduced.
The bakery sections of supermarkets in France are much better in the UK too. However, they are not a patch on the local boulangeries. I really miss at the moment fresh French baguette, you just can't seem to get something similar in the UK.
Being in Normandy by the sea the supermarkets there even had large water tanks filled with crabs and lobsters. I imagine there wouldn't be much demand for them in the UK!
It's hard to remember now how joyless and shabby supermarkets used to be before about 1986. Like Lidl, only without the benefits of Lidl's prices. One feature I remember is supermarket music - which I presume had been written and recorded specifically fir supermarkets, because it wasn't music you heard anywhere else.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
Mildly interesting tweet, given recent posts on supermarkets..
Samuel Jenkinson @samueljenkinson Meat and fish in British supermarkets is actually better than in Belgium. Not just by price, but also choice. It’s actually enraging me walking around how much more I pay for everything and what just isn’t available. 4:14 PM · Aug 26, 2021 from Hull, England·Twitter for iPhone https://twitter.com/samueljenkinson/status/1430911583073538048
Not found anywhere in the world which has as good a mix of range and prices as British supermarkets. It is not difficult to find cheaper or better, but yet to find both together.
There was a very touching story, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, about some early Romanian tourists visiting a random British supermarket. A big Tesco near Swindon or a Sainsburys in Glasgow or whatever. The Romanians burst into tears
Their concerned British hosts asked them ‘what upsets you’ expecting a political response. But the Romanians said they were crying with shock, tinged with delight. ‘There’s just so much of everything, and things we’ve never seen’
A modern western supermarket is an incredible thing. Unprecedented in human civilisation. All the greatest produce from all across the world. We take them for granted. And, yes, British supermarkets are some of the very best. Only the French (carrefour, etc) really rival them. I’ve not seen as good anywhere else
The curious thing is that the Tesco/Sainsbury strand continues to thrive in the UK. After all, their appeal over Didldidi is that they may be a bit more expensive, but the whole experience is nicer. In a lot of Europe, that hasn't happened, and in a lot of UK sectors it hasn't happened; department stores are vanishing, Ryanair has hoovered up the business of flying round Europe, that sort of thing.
But yes- the underfloor plumbing that means that I can wander to the mini supermarket or maxi corner shop at the end of the next road, or do some tapping and get the things I want to eat in good condition with minimal fuss... it is a remarkable thing.
Is it? What purpose do such stores serve today? Their clientele are dying.
The clientele might be dying, but in general it means homogenisation and loss of jobs disproportionately to a smaller group of online giants.
Saddening then. But presumably you've been to a high street in the last five years?
I must admit when my local small chain department (Tudor Williams) was due to close down. I popped in a couple of times.
It was like being in Are You Being Served? with a large number of staff keen to support your shopping experience, with a margin over most shops - let alone Amazon - of 20%. In its closing down sale I got 40% off and even then I didn't get a particularly good deal.
In that case at least it is pretty obvious that the store had been surviving on a dwindling group of older people who were less likely to shop online and more likely to pay a premium for the experience. its decline was, therefore, absolutely inevitable.
(Despite my reference to a 1970s sitcom I am in fact a verified young person (tm))
I would sometimes shop in a department store and be willing to pay 5-10% premium for a mix of it all being in the same place, a level of quality and being able to see and touch it as opposed to online. As you say the premium was actually 20%+, sometimes up to 50% to the best internet price. Unsustainable.
Seems a significant number of people go and look and touch and then go home and order over the net from a cheap source.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
They could have done that from this year, taking advantage of Covid.
Mildly interesting tweet, given recent posts on supermarkets..
Samuel Jenkinson @samueljenkinson Meat and fish in British supermarkets is actually better than in Belgium. Not just by price, but also choice. It’s actually enraging me walking around how much more I pay for everything and what just isn’t available. 4:14 PM · Aug 26, 2021 from Hull, England·Twitter for iPhone https://twitter.com/samueljenkinson/status/1430911583073538048
Not found anywhere in the world which has as good a mix of range and prices as British supermarkets. It is not difficult to find cheaper or better, but yet to find both together.
There was a very touching story, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, about some early Romanian tourists visiting a random British supermarket. A big Tesco near Swindon or a Sainsburys in Glasgow or whatever. The Romanians burst into tears
Their concerned British hosts asked them ‘what upsets you’ expecting a political response. But the Romanians said they were crying with shock, tinged with delight. ‘There’s just so much of everything, and things we’ve never seen’
A modern western supermarket is an incredible thing. Unprecedented in human civilisation. All the greatest produce from all across the world. We take them for granted. And, yes, British supermarkets are some of the very best. Only the French (carrefour, etc) really rival them. I’ve not seen as good anywhere else
I once saw some American tourists fascinated to encounter fresh cranberries for the first time, in Waitrose by Gloucester Road tube. I also heard many years ago that American supermarkets are more likely to have 57 different brands of strawberry jam than 57 different flavours of jam. Whether that is still true I could not say, although I doubt it.
American supermarkets are magnificent beasts. Wall upon wall of brightly coloured fructose and similar foodstuffs.
Then again, a US Wholefoods is a thing of wonder. The UK's ones don't really come close.
Mildly interesting tweet, given recent posts on supermarkets..
Samuel Jenkinson @samueljenkinson Meat and fish in British supermarkets is actually better than in Belgium. Not just by price, but also choice. It’s actually enraging me walking around how much more I pay for everything and what just isn’t available. 4:14 PM · Aug 26, 2021 from Hull, England·Twitter for iPhone https://twitter.com/samueljenkinson/status/1430911583073538048
Not found anywhere in the world which has as good a mix of range and prices as British supermarkets. It is not difficult to find cheaper or better, but yet to find both together.
There was a very touching story, just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, about some early Romanian tourists visiting a random British supermarket. A big Tesco near Swindon or a Sainsburys in Glasgow or whatever. The Romanians burst into tears
Their concerned British hosts asked them ‘what upsets you’ expecting a political response. But the Romanians said they were crying with shock, tinged with delight. ‘There’s just so much of everything, and things we’ve never seen’
A modern western supermarket is an incredible thing. Unprecedented in human civilisation. All the greatest produce from all across the world. We take them for granted. And, yes, British supermarkets are some of the very best. Only the French (carrefour, etc) really rival them. I’ve not seen as good anywhere else
I used to regularly spend about a month each year in Normandy and shopped obviously at the supermarkets there. One big difference is that French supermarkets almost never had the promotional price reductions that we have here. In the UK you often see tubs of Haagen Dazs ice cream reduced from £5 to £3. In France it would always be about €6 per tub and never reduced.
The bakery sections of supermarkets in France are much better in the UK too. However, they are not a patch on the local boulangeries. I really miss at the moment fresh French baguette, you just can't seem to get something similar in the UK.
Being in Normandy by the sea the supermarkets there even had large water tanks filled with crabs and lobsters. I imagine there wouldn't be much demand for them in the UK!
French supermarkets are probably a notch better than British. But it is damn close. Brits have a better range of global wine, and also sauces. French are slightly better at fruit and veg, and definitely cheese. And bread. Brits have slightly better meat perhaps. French have those amazing seafood tanks.
I actually check this stuff out, when I travel!
I’ve not seen superior anywhere else. Not America, Germany, Japan, etc
The single best supermarket I have ever been is the massive Carrefour in Monte Carlo. Perhaps unsurprising given the wealth of the likely customers
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
More a reflection of higher exam grades that meet the criteria for admission in independent and selective schools.
That is about right considering a third of A and A* grades at A level go to independent school pupils
No, that finding seems to relate to lower results. That is why the difference is remarkable. It surely cannot be all down to posh schools knowing it is easy to get into divinity at Brasenose than archaeology at Balliol or vice versa, or even over-optimistic grade forecasts. There must be bias at the admissions end.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
TBF it's a question of politics/optics, so Biden could be permanently fucked regardless of any strategic vision type considerations.
Is it? What purpose do such stores serve today? Their clientele are dying.
The clientele might be dying, but in general it means homogenisation and loss of jobs disproportionately to a smaller group of online giants.
Saddening then. But presumably you've been to a high street in the last five years?
I must admit when my local small chain department (Tudor Williams) was due to close down. I popped in a couple of times.
It was like being in Are You Being Served? with a large number of staff keen to support your shopping experience, with a margin over most shops - let alone Amazon - of 20%. In its closing down sale I got 40% off and even then I didn't get a particularly good deal.
In that case at least it is pretty obvious that the store had been surviving on a dwindling group of older people who were less likely to shop online and more likely to pay a premium for the experience. its decline was, therefore, absolutely inevitable.
(Despite my reference to a 1970s sitcom I am in fact a verified young person (tm))
I would sometimes shop in a department store and be willing to pay 5-10% premium for a mix of it all being in the same place, a level of quality and being able to see and touch it as opposed to online. As you say the premium was actually 20%+, sometimes up to 50% to the best internet price. Unsustainable.
Seems a significant number of people go and look and touch and then go home and order over the net from a cheap source.
In which case maybe they should have tried a costco/amazon prime type scheme. £150 a year, free coffees when there but sensible competitive prices.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Yes Cherie and Hillary were far more successful lawyers than their husbands but their husbands were far more successful politicians.
Cherie wisely stuck to law having been a Labour candidate in the early 1980s, Hillary didn't
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Given that HS2 benefits the big cities and the biggest most of all it seems a strange argument.
Now he's correct that different people and different economic sectors have experienced covid in different ways - I've said before that the last year has been near normal on the suburban industrial estates ie totally different to the city centre offices.
But the workers on the suburban industrial estates travel by car not by train.
Also, why mention Burnley in relation to the eastern arm of HS2? I bet he's never been to Burnley.
He probably has. He’s done a tour of the former red wall for a book he is writing. He has a genuine feel for this stuff being from Gateshead himself.
An early-morning thought, and one that's probably wrong:
The Taliban's takeover of almost all of Afghanistan was rapid; far more rapid than most expected. Might they have felt that the 'government' was weak, and feared that if they did not take over, other groups such as IS might have had a chance to spread?
In other words, the Taliban took over quickly, not just because they could, but because they felt threatened by the presence of other players on the field?
No, I think it's because they've had a year and a half to prepare for this. In that time, for example, they've assassinated several potentially effective leaders who might have increased the chances of holding the Afghan army together, so it's their intent was pretty obvious. In contrast there's been very little evidence of the Afghan government developing any strategy to contest a Taliban takeover.
Many Afghan families had members in both the Taliban and the ANA. It was likely not exceptionally difficult for both sides to calculate the outcome of a civil war, and for large parts of the ANA to decide it wan't worth trying to fight, and to communicate that decision.
Whether they might now come to regret that is another question.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
Trumpism is a religion, age does not come into it. If he wants it the nomination is his. Biden is likely to be the candidate most likely to defeat him again, so will be needed.
The perception of age is more important than the actual number. Trump looks utterly ludicrous but not any older or younger than his actual age. Biden is the same age as Mick Jagger but could pass for somebody in his 90s.
Yes, a life spent furiously wriggling your bum around seems to pay dividends in old age. There's been little of that from Joe, thus far, and it would probably be ill advised for him to start now.
But your point is right. People age differently and there is a frailty with Biden that plenty of 78 year olds don't show. For me, with him, it's more physical than mental. Eg I listened to him yesterday on the radio and without the visuals there was little to no evidence of senility or anything close.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
Oh this is so frustrating.
I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong. In fact to do so wouldn't be a proof because two sets of different stats have different criteria so it wouldn't prove you wrong. It would prove absolutely nothing.
However what I did do was a proof by contradiction. I suggest you look it up.
It wasn't difficult because it was clear to everyone but you that you were comparing a subset of one set to the complete set of another set, which you just can't do.
Now none of this proves whether Grammar schools are better or worse than Comprehensives, so doesn't prove whether either of us is right. We both have different opinions and both are as valid as each other, but it does show that the assumption you came to from a valid stat was unfounded. It was mathematically wrong. It was unfactual. It was incorrect. It was not true. Now that is a provable fact.
You don't understand any of this do you?
Maths doesn't stop in the classroom in goes into real life and you can't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply.
You restarted this tedious argument this morning, so blame yourself.
'I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong.' No because you don't have any!
You asked me to produce figures showing selective areas did better than non selective areas on Oxbridge admission, not just comparing grammars and comps and I did
Para 1 - No I didn't. My message was addressed to Ian not you
Para 2 - Yep no understanding whatsoever. Tell me honestly, did you understand any of this stuff? Do you understand you can't just pick up stats and do what you do with them? Do you understand that by giving an example of where your assumption about the stat fails, means that the assumption is false. Do you understand any of this?
Sentence 3 - I did no such thing
It was a message taking a hit at me, which is why you mentioned me directly in the post.
And still quite clearly you have no facts or stats to refute the one I posted earlier so you continue with the same tedious rant as before
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
Oh this is so frustrating.
I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong. In fact to do so wouldn't be a proof because two sets of different stats have different criteria so it wouldn't prove you wrong. It would prove absolutely nothing.
However what I did do was a proof by contradiction. I suggest you look it up.
It wasn't difficult because it was clear to everyone but you that you were comparing a subset of one set to the complete set of another set, which you just can't do.
Now none of this proves whether Grammar schools are better or worse than Comprehensives, so doesn't prove whether either of us is right. We both have different opinions and both are as valid as each other, but it does show that the assumption you came to from a valid stat was unfounded. It was mathematically wrong. It was unfactual. It was incorrect. It was not true. Now that is a provable fact.
You don't understand any of this do you?
Maths doesn't stop in the classroom in goes into real life and you can't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply.
Why do you bother
@HYUFD has a closed mind to any opinion which he does not consent to
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
TBF it's a question of politics/optics, so Biden could be permanently fucked regardless of any strategic vision type considerations.
Teething trouble. It will settle down and those 100 people and the "chaos" will be just part of the big morass that *was* the US involvement in Afghan.
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Given that HS2 benefits the big cities and the biggest most of all it seems a strange argument.
Now he's correct that different people and different economic sectors have experienced covid in different ways - I've said before that the last year has been near normal on the suburban industrial estates ie totally different to the city centre offices.
But the workers on the suburban industrial estates travel by car not by train.
Also, why mention Burnley in relation to the eastern arm of HS2? I bet he's never been to Burnley.
He probably has. He’s done a tour of the former red wall for a book he is writing. He has a genuine feel for this stuff being from Gateshead himself.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and Headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and Headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
It would be a good move in some ways but would also be the culmination of the increasing emphasis on exam grades so they become the sole criteria for evaluating pupils/candidates. When I were a lad some universities would give ultra low offers to promising candidates after interview (and possibly tests) either to "grab " them against the competition or because they were from poorly performing schools or a working class background. Exam results used to be treated more sensibly as useful indicators with flaws.
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Given that HS2 benefits the big cities and the biggest most of all it seems a strange argument.
Now he's correct that different people and different economic sectors have experienced covid in different ways - I've said before that the last year has been near normal on the suburban industrial estates ie totally different to the city centre offices.
But the workers on the suburban industrial estates travel by car not by train.
And a road isn't just a way of getting from A to B - its an economic location by itself.
Build a road and along it comes economic development - housing estates, industrial estates, business parks, leisure facilities. Places to live, places to work, places to have fun.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
More a reflection of higher exam grades that meet the criteria for admission in independent and selective schools.
That is about right considering a third of A and A* grades at A level go to independent school pupils
No, that finding seems to relate to lower results. That is why the difference is remarkable. It surely cannot be all down to posh schools knowing it is easy to get into divinity at Brasenose than archaeology at Balliol or vice versa, or even over-optimistic grade forecasts. There must be bias at the admissions end.
A second Scottish independence referendum can take place if polling consistently shows 60 per cent of Scots desire a fresh vote, according to a Tory cabinet Minister.
Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, has revealed that Boris Johnson will grant powers to hold a referendum if polling for a referendum, not necessarily independence, is consistently at 60 per cent.
The figure builds on the recent statement from fellow Cabinet Minister Michael Gove, who is in charge of union policy, told the Sunday Mail that “if it is the case that there is clearly a settled will in favour of a referendum, then one will occur.”
Not just the Westminster govt - and an even tougher test:
A level of 60% support for Scottish independence over the period of a year has been identified as a benchmark in making the decision over a second referendum, senior SNP sources say.
The figure is a "trigger point", but will not be publicly acknowledged, sources told the BBC's John Pienaar.
Prof John Curtice said it was the level the party should be thinking about.
An SNP spokesman said there would only be a second referendum if there was clear evidence of a shift of opinion...."Six months of polls won't be enough," said a senior SNP figure, involved in the discussions.
In indyref2 polls it hasn't, Yes under 50% including don't knows in every poll, so little different from the 45% Yes of 2014.
Hence Sturgeon is not pushing for an indyref2 now or anytime soon
What’s the change for No since 2014?
Despite the fact only 38% of Scots voted for Brexit, No still leads most of the latest polls yes
I seriously doubt it had anything to do with Brexit and a lot more with Nicola as mother of the nation dominating the airwaves but yes had a lead for a chunk of last year and a revival in our second lockdown but the current trend seems to be against them.
Yes had a brief clear lead before the vaccinations, as you say not because of Brexit, which has now evaporated
20 straight polls over 8 months is a brief lead? Okeydokey.
Gone now tho, innit? No is ahead consistently, despite the ‘inevitable move to Yes amongst Scots blah blah’
What is it? Perhaps your 23% deficit, meaning you immediately become Venezuela on Indy? Or perhaps a secular shift caused by Brexit? We are again the offshore islanders?
Perplexing times for Nats
I’ll always love the paradox of Yoons simultaneously claiming that Yes would lose while crowing that BJ will never grant Indy ref II. So revealing psychologically.
HMG policy is to grant indyref2 when the Scots show 60% plus support for it to be held
It seems it is also SNP policy
No need to worry about @HYUFD's tanks, just persuade public opinion and you have indyref2
Mind you getting in league with the Greens is the first real misstep Sturgeon has made and will not help
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Given that HS2 benefits the big cities and the biggest most of all it seems a strange argument.
Now he's correct that different people and different economic sectors have experienced covid in different ways - I've said before that the last year has been near normal on the suburban industrial estates ie totally different to the city centre offices.
But the workers on the suburban industrial estates travel by car not by train.
And a road isn't just a way of getting from A to B - its an economic location by itself.
Build a road and along it comes economic development - housing estates, industrial estates, business parks, leisure facilities. Places to live, places to work, places to have fun.
That's not something any railway brings.
I'm a big advocate of spending on public transport. My understanding is that the wider benefits of public transport investment tend to comfortably exceed those of road investment - certainly of motorway investment. But even I wouldn't argue that HS2 brings any benefit at all to Burnley.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
Streamline the admissions process by removing interviews, personal statements and associated nonsense that introduce bias into the system and you could run the whole admissions process after A-level results are known, and without changing when A-levels are sat. (There may well be other reasons for earlier exams to avoid excessive temperatures or pollen for hay fever sufferers.)
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
OK this really is the last post (stop cheering at the back)
a) In successive posts you accuse me of using data and in the next say I haven't. What? To be clear I haven't.
b) You completely fail to comprehend that:
(i) You have misused a stat (even though umpteen people have pointed it out to you and it should be obvious to anyone what that misuse is.
(ii) You fail to understand that even if I did produce a stat from somewhere else showing the opposite using your methodology it would be equally invalid. Hence I am not producing stats that prove nothing.
(iii) However by providing a hypothetical example of where your assumption fails as I did, I proved your assumption was mathematically wrong. Once one has done that one doesn't have to do anything else.
Now that doesn't prove who is right. It certainly doesn't prove I am right. But it does prove you used the stats you used in an invalid way. You jumped to an invalid conclusion. Although that conclusion may still we right you did not deduce it in a valid way.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
More a reflection of higher exam grades that meet the criteria for admission in independent and selective schools.
That is about right considering a third of A and A* grades at A level go to independent school pupils
No, that finding seems to relate to lower results. That is why the difference is remarkable. It surely cannot be all down to posh schools knowing it is easy to get into divinity at Brasenose than archaeology at Balliol or vice versa, or even over-optimistic grade forecasts. There must be bias at the admissions end.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
I doubt that line of argument is going to be advanced by anyone in the administration in the near future, let alone gain much traction.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
Trumpism is a religion, age does not come into it. If he wants it the nomination is his. Biden is likely to be the candidate most likely to defeat him again, so will be needed.
The perception of age is more important than the actual number. Trump looks utterly ludicrous but not any older or younger than his actual age. Biden is the same age as Mick Jagger but could pass for somebody in his 90s.
Yes, a life spent furiously wriggling your bum around seems to pay dividends in old age. There's been little of that from Joe, thus far, and it would probably be ill advised for him to start now.
But your point is right. People age differently and there is a frailty with Biden that plenty of 78 year olds don't show. For me, with him, it's more physical than mental. Eg I listened to him yesterday on the radio and without the visuals there was little to no evidence of senility or anything close.
Yes that’s fair. Audibly he sounds old but audibly he could also pass for wise. Faltering a little, but that means he’s thinking, maybe. Choosing words carefully but judiciously
Visually its worse, he looks OLDER than his many years. He also looks diminished. Humble. Shriveled. This is cruel but true
America is a superpower, used to being top dog, now in relative decline (but still bound to be eminent for deacades hence). It’s voters will surely yearn very soon for a non-mad younger president able to project a sense of renewed vigour and even renaissance.
A second Scottish independence referendum can take place if polling consistently shows 60 per cent of Scots desire a fresh vote, according to a Tory cabinet Minister.
Alister Jack, the Scottish Secretary, has revealed that Boris Johnson will grant powers to hold a referendum if polling for a referendum, not necessarily independence, is consistently at 60 per cent.
The figure builds on the recent statement from fellow Cabinet Minister Michael Gove, who is in charge of union policy, told the Sunday Mail that “if it is the case that there is clearly a settled will in favour of a referendum, then one will occur.”
Not just the Westminster govt - and an even tougher test:
A level of 60% support for Scottish independence over the period of a year has been identified as a benchmark in making the decision over a second referendum, senior SNP sources say.
The figure is a "trigger point", but will not be publicly acknowledged, sources told the BBC's John Pienaar.
Prof John Curtice said it was the level the party should be thinking about.
An SNP spokesman said there would only be a second referendum if there was clear evidence of a shift of opinion...."Six months of polls won't be enough," said a senior SNP figure, involved in the discussions.
In indyref2 polls it hasn't, Yes under 50% including don't knows in every poll, so little different from the 45% Yes of 2014.
Hence Sturgeon is not pushing for an indyref2 now or anytime soon
What’s the change for No since 2014?
Despite the fact only 38% of Scots voted for Brexit, No still leads most of the latest polls yes
I seriously doubt it had anything to do with Brexit and a lot more with Nicola as mother of the nation dominating the airwaves but yes had a lead for a chunk of last year and a revival in our second lockdown but the current trend seems to be against them.
Yes had a brief clear lead before the vaccinations, as you say not because of Brexit, which has now evaporated
20 straight polls over 8 months is a brief lead? Okeydokey.
Gone now tho, innit? No is ahead consistently, despite the ‘inevitable move to Yes amongst Scots blah blah’
What is it? Perhaps your 23% deficit, meaning you immediately become Venezuela on Indy? Or perhaps a secular shift caused by Brexit? We are again the offshore islanders?
Perplexing times for Nats
I’ll always love the paradox of Yoons simultaneously claiming that Yes would lose while crowing that BJ will never grant Indy ref II. So revealing psychologically.
HMG policy is to grant indyref2 when the Scots show 60% plus support for it to be held
It seems it is also SNP policy
Actually they appear to be different - with the UK government having the lower bar:
UK: 60% in favour of a referendum SNP: 60% in favour of independence
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
Is it? What purpose do such stores serve today? Their clientele are dying.
The clientele might be dying, but in general it means homogenisation and loss of jobs disproportionately to a smaller group of online giants.
Saddening then. But presumably you've been to a high street in the last five years?
I must admit when my local small chain department (Tudor Williams) was due to close down. I popped in a couple of times.
It was like being in Are You Being Served? with a large number of staff keen to support your shopping experience, with a margin over most shops - let alone Amazon - of 20%. In its closing down sale I got 40% off and even then I didn't get a particularly good deal.
In that case at least it is pretty obvious that the store had been surviving on a dwindling group of older people who were less likely to shop online and more likely to pay a premium for the experience. its decline was, therefore, absolutely inevitable.
(Despite my reference to a 1970s sitcom I am in fact a verified young person (tm))
I would sometimes shop in a department store and be willing to pay 5-10% premium for a mix of it all being in the same place, a level of quality and being able to see and touch it as opposed to online. As you say the premium was actually 20%+, sometimes up to 50% to the best internet price. Unsustainable.
I understand the John Lewis model. A small premium so I know what I am buying is decent quality, I have the opportunity to see it in person, and I can do some window shopping for aspirational items at the same time.
And I know that another department store I used to go to, now Fenwicks, in Colchester, is essentially trying to run the same model. I wouldn't be surprised if many other department stores are. It is not having its best year, I suspect, but it could yet return to profit.
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
I doubt that line of argument is going to be advanced by anyone in the administration in the near future, let alone gain much traction.
Of course not. But that's how history rolls. Politicians can't tell it like it is but the great march of history will ensure that this is eventually contextualised.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and Headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and Headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
It would be a good move in some ways but would also be the culmination of the increasing emphasis on exam grades so they become the sole criteria for evaluating pupils/candidates. When I were a lad some universities would give ultra low offers to promising candidates after interview (and possibly tests) either to "grab " them against the competition or because they were from poorly performing schools or a working class background. Exam results used to be treated more sensibly as useful indicators with flaws.
Yes, in theory, admissions tutors can give a leg up to kids from less favoured backgrounds. The evidence, however, is that by and large it actually works the other way. So ditch it, removing the bias, saving everyone's time and allowing academics to get on with splitting the atom or decolonising the curriculum or whatever it is universities do these days.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
More a reflection of higher exam grades that meet the criteria for admission in independent and selective schools.
That is about right considering a third of A and A* grades at A level go to independent school pupils
No, that finding seems to relate to lower results. That is why the difference is remarkable. It surely cannot be all down to posh schools knowing it is easy to get into divinity at Brasenose than archaeology at Balliol or vice versa, or even over-optimistic grade forecasts. There must be bias at the admissions end.
Straight A* or close to are generally the admissions requirement for Oxbridge now
The paragraph on page 33 to which I drew your attention seemed to reveal a strong bias at the low end, separate from over-performance at A-levels.
The lowest fifth of independent schools will still likely have significantly higher average exam results than the lowest fifth of comprehensive schools overall so I don't think that necessarily follows
O/t but anyone seen @isam this morning? In view of his/his girl-friend's possible problems.
Morning
Thanks for asking, Old King Cole
She’s done another test and it’s another negative. She’s got conjunctivitis now though, and the only late night pharmacist open round here yesterday would not sell me anything to sort it because she’s preggers. Doctors appt at 4 and she’s leaning towards having the jab.
Such a tricky decision the jab. She also has chronic migraines and so I worry about blood clotting
Good Morning to you. Surprised she couldn't buy something for conjunctivitis, but some of my one-time colleagues can be over-cautious. At 32 weeks there's unlikely to be any harm which can come to the baby from the vaccine. However, I'm not on the register anymore, so don't have to keep myself up to date. As I said, a chat with the midwife would be my first choice. How long has she been with her current GP? And will it be face to face or telephone?
Wish you ...... all three of you ...... well!
Thanks
She’s got the scan / midwife on Tuesday, so that should help. Docs today is face to face. Been here a couple of years.
Yeah I drive round most of Havering looking for a pharmacy open at 9pm, and when I found one they would serve me!
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
OK this really is the last post (stop cheering at the back)
a) In successive posts you accuse me of using data and in the next say I haven't. What? To be clear I haven't.
b) You completely fail to comprehend that:
(i) You have misused a stat (even though umpteen people have pointed it out to you and it should be obvious to anyone what that misuse is.
(ii) You fail to understand that even if I did produce a stat from somewhere else showing the opposite using your methodology it would be equally invalid. Hence I am not producing stats that prove nothing.
(iii) However by providing a hypothetical example of where your assumption fails as I did, I proved your assumption was mathematically wrong. Once one has done that one doesn't have to do anything else.
Now that doesn't prove who is right. It certainly doesn't prove I am right. But it does prove you used the stats you used in an invalid way. You jumped to an invalid conclusion. Although that conclusion may still we right you did not deduce it in a valid way.
You don't have any facts to refute mine that is the point, hence you have mot posted any.
Your hypothetical example only applied to comparing the average grammar to the average comp, not comparing selective LA areas overall to comprehensive LA areas overall, so is irrelevant in this context based on stats comparing the latter I produced.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
Oh this is so frustrating.
I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong. In fact to do so wouldn't be a proof because two sets of different stats have different criteria so it wouldn't prove you wrong. It would prove absolutely nothing.
However what I did do was a proof by contradiction. I suggest you look it up.
It wasn't difficult because it was clear to everyone but you that you were comparing a subset of one set to the complete set of another set, which you just can't do.
Now none of this proves whether Grammar schools are better or worse than Comprehensives, so doesn't prove whether either of us is right. We both have different opinions and both are as valid as each other, but it does show that the assumption you came to from a valid stat was unfounded. It was mathematically wrong. It was unfactual. It was incorrect. It was not true. Now that is a provable fact.
You don't understand any of this do you?
Maths doesn't stop in the classroom in goes into real life and you can't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply.
You restarted this tedious argument this morning, so blame yourself.
'I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong.' No because you don't have any!
You asked me to produce figures showing selective areas did better than non selective areas on Oxbridge admission, not just comparing grammars and comps and I did
Para 1 - No I didn't. My message was addressed to Ian not you
Para 2 - Yep no understanding whatsoever. Tell me honestly, did you understand any of this stuff? Do you understand you can't just pick up stats and do what you do with them? Do you understand that by giving an example of where your assumption about the stat fails, means that the assumption is false. Do you understand any of this?
Sentence 3 - I did no such thing
It was a message taking a hit at me, which is why you mentioned me directly in the post.
And still quite clearly you have no facts or stats to refute the one I posted earlier so you continue with the same tedious rant as before
If he took a hit at you I suppose you'll be invading and occupying for a few threads until you lose the appetite for the fight and decide to drop it, leaving him to post about grammar schools unopposed.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and Headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and Headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
It would be a good move in some ways but would also be the culmination of the increasing emphasis on exam grades so they become the sole criteria for evaluating pupils/candidates. When I were a lad some universities would give ultra low offers to promising candidates after interview (and possibly tests) either to "grab " them against the competition or because they were from poorly performing schools or a working class background. Exam results used to be treated more sensibly as useful indicators with flaws.
Also, it would be difficult to get rid of interviews totally. For vocations like medicine, it seems wise to talk to the actual wannabe doctors face-to-face, and I doubt that exams can give the fine-grained reliability that really competitive courses need.
What I'm not sure of is where the boundary between institutions interviewing and not interviewing currently is. A lot more places go on UCAS form and reference than seem to have done (ahem) years ago. Sixth formers don't do the trek round the country that I remember doing back in the day- which is probably a shame. But that might be a function of the choices made by students at the kinds of places I teach.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
Oh this is so frustrating.
I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong. In fact to do so wouldn't be a proof because two sets of different stats have different criteria so it wouldn't prove you wrong. It would prove absolutely nothing.
However what I did do was a proof by contradiction. I suggest you look it up.
It wasn't difficult because it was clear to everyone but you that you were comparing a subset of one set to the complete set of another set, which you just can't do.
Now none of this proves whether Grammar schools are better or worse than Comprehensives, so doesn't prove whether either of us is right. We both have different opinions and both are as valid as each other, but it does show that the assumption you came to from a valid stat was unfounded. It was mathematically wrong. It was unfactual. It was incorrect. It was not true. Now that is a provable fact.
You don't understand any of this do you?
Maths doesn't stop in the classroom in goes into real life and you can't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply.
Why do you bother
@HYUFD has a closed mind to any opinion which he does not consent to
I am slightly hesitant about contributing to this but having had a son go through the Oxbridge application process over the last 2 years I have a certain sympathy for @HYUFD's position here.
The starting point is that admission to Oxbridge for most subjects is incredibly hard. My son had 4 advanced Highers this year but worked at least as hard on his TSA as he did on them. Hours and hours were spent on his UCAS application and as many mock interviews as we could find were given. He was at a good private school but they seemed to have little appreciation of just how difficult it is and we sought and needed outside help.
What drove him to success was enormous determination on his part, a willingness to sacrifice sports and what most teenagers would consider a social life. He was (correctly) advised not to stand for any of the positions available to pupils in the school: he simply did not have time. A major factor in his success was the competitive pressure that was provided with an exceptional cohort, 5 of whom have also made it.
Applying this to the grammar school/Comprehensive set up and it seems that the criteria I have identified are far more likely to be met in a grammar school than a comprehensive. There is a completely artificial concentration of the locally available talent to provide the competition. There are classes that work at the requisite pace without distractions and there are more likely to me teachers with a better understanding of what was required. The ability to work at an exceptional pace is a prerequisite for exams like the TSA.
An exceptional child can of course make it from a Comprehensive but even with the outreach campaigns that Oxford offers (no doubt Cambridge has something similar) that path is much, much more difficult. They simply do not have the necessary support network.
Of course there is an entirely different question about whether Oxbridge entrants is a meaningful or useful test of school success. I would personally say not. It is much more important how the 99% fare than the 1% and there is good evidence that they on average do better in a comprehensive system. I favour comprehensives for this reason but I was not surprised at @HYUFD's claim.
HMG policy is to grant indyref2 when the Scots show 60% plus support for it to be held
It seems it is also SNP policy
No need to worry about @HYUFD's tanks, just persuade public opinion and you have indyref2
Mind you getting in league with the Greens is the first real misstep Sturgeon has made and will not help
That's official HMG policy rather than Jack flying yet another kite is it? Given that Jack has previously said that there should be a referendum if there's a majority in Holyrood for it then pivoting to no new ref for 25 years, I think I'll put that in the no one gives a shit what he thinks folder.
Glad to see that you've relegated the SNP voting against the BJ Brexit deal down from real misstep status.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
More a reflection of higher exam grades that meet the criteria for admission in independent and selective schools.
That is about right considering a third of A and A* grades at A level go to independent school pupils
No, that finding seems to relate to lower results. That is why the difference is remarkable. It surely cannot be all down to posh schools knowing it is easy to get into divinity at Brasenose than archaeology at Balliol or vice versa, or even over-optimistic grade forecasts. There must be bias at the admissions end.
Straight A* or close to are generally the admissions requirement for Oxbridge now
The paragraph on page 33 to which I drew your attention seemed to reveal a strong bias at the low end, separate from over-performance at A-levels.
The lowest fifth of independent schools will still likely have significantly higher average exam results than the lowest fifth of comprehensive schools overall so I don't think that necessarily follows
I went to a bog standard comp and then through good fortune or call it what you may, I ended up being able to afford to send my kids to independent schools. There is a fundamental difference between the state and independent sector: expectation.
Far too many state teachers (not all by any means) have a kind of nationalised industry mindset where they are too accepting of mediocrity, indeed at the school I went to they seemed to revel in it. Independent schools generally set the bar high and go for it. Higher expectations= higher outcomes. Same in business and same in all endeavour.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
Oh this is so frustrating.
I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong. In fact to do so wouldn't be a proof because two sets of different stats have different criteria so it wouldn't prove you wrong. It would prove absolutely nothing.
However what I did do was a proof by contradiction. I suggest you look it up.
It wasn't difficult because it was clear to everyone but you that you were comparing a subset of one set to the complete set of another set, which you just can't do.
Now none of this proves whether Grammar schools are better or worse than Comprehensives, so doesn't prove whether either of us is right. We both have different opinions and both are as valid as each other, but it does show that the assumption you came to from a valid stat was unfounded. It was mathematically wrong. It was unfactual. It was incorrect. It was not true. Now that is a provable fact.
You don't understand any of this do you?
Maths doesn't stop in the classroom in goes into real life and you can't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply.
Why do you bother
@HYUFD has a closed mind to any opinion which he does not consent to
I know I shouldn't. I get sucked in.
It isn't his opinions I object to. They are fine even if I disagree. I don't mind that he supports Grammar schools, I'm fine with that also. I like many of his posts.
I just can't deal with people coming to conclusions using maths that is so mind bogglingly wrong.
I think I could cope with a fascist, anarchist or communist better.
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Given that HS2 benefits the big cities and the biggest most of all it seems a strange argument.
Now he's correct that different people and different economic sectors have experienced covid in different ways - I've said before that the last year has been near normal on the suburban industrial estates ie totally different to the city centre offices.
But the workers on the suburban industrial estates travel by car not by train.
Also, why mention Burnley in relation to the eastern arm of HS2? I bet he's never been to Burnley.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Is it? What purpose do such stores serve today? Their clientele are dying.
The clientele might be dying, but in general it means homogenisation and loss of jobs disproportionately to a smaller group of online giants.
Saddening then. But presumably you've been to a high street in the last five years?
I must admit when my local small chain department (Tudor Williams) was due to close down. I popped in a couple of times.
It was like being in Are You Being Served? with a large number of staff keen to support your shopping experience, with a margin over most shops - let alone Amazon - of 20%. In its closing down sale I got 40% off and even then I didn't get a particularly good deal.
In that case at least it is pretty obvious that the store had been surviving on a dwindling group of older people who were less likely to shop online and more likely to pay a premium for the experience. its decline was, therefore, absolutely inevitable.
(Despite my reference to a 1970s sitcom I am in fact a verified young person (tm))
I would sometimes shop in a department store and be willing to pay 5-10% premium for a mix of it all being in the same place, a level of quality and being able to see and touch it as opposed to online. As you say the premium was actually 20%+, sometimes up to 50% to the best internet price. Unsustainable.
I understand the John Lewis model. A small premium so I know what I am buying is decent quality, I have the opportunity to see it in person, and I can do some window shopping for aspirational items at the same time.
And I know that another department store I used to go to, now Fenwicks, in Colchester, is essentially trying to run the same model. I wouldn't be surprised if many other department stores are. It is not having its best year, I suspect, but it could yet return to profit.
John Lewis has been making a lot of experienced staff redundant. And it shows. One of their USP's is customer service but lately it has not been as good as it was. I wish they would concentrate on what they are good at.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
You haven't learnt that single data points rarely prove anything
They do when they effectively meet the very criteria kjh set for whether selective areas were beneficial or not.
Nope I didn't. At no point have I used stats. Not once. I know my limitations.
No you haven't because you don't have any to refute the ones I produce.
OK this really is the last post (stop cheering at the back)
a) In successive posts you accuse me of using data and in the next say I haven't. What? To be clear I haven't.
b) You completely fail to comprehend that:
(i) You have misused a stat (even though umpteen people have pointed it out to you and it should be obvious to anyone what that misuse is.
(ii) You fail to understand that even if I did produce a stat from somewhere else showing the opposite using your methodology it would be equally invalid. Hence I am not producing stats that prove nothing.
(iii) However by providing a hypothetical example of where your assumption fails as I did, I proved your assumption was mathematically wrong. Once one has done that one doesn't have to do anything else.
Now that doesn't prove who is right. It certainly doesn't prove I am right. But it does prove you used the stats you used in an invalid way. You jumped to an invalid conclusion. Although that conclusion may still we right you did not deduce it in a valid way.
You don't have any facts to refute mine that is the point, hence you have mot posted any.
Your hypothetical example only applied to comparing the average grammar to the average comp, not comparing selective LA areas overall to comprehensive LA areas overall, so is irrelevant in this context based on stats comparing the latter I produced.
Your "facts" don't mean what you think they do.
Do you really believe that @rcs1000 understands less about statistics than you?
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and Headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
You were correct in your post the other day. What I thought was a case of Simpson's paradox wasn't as you pointed out, it was just basic misuse of data. I read up on it again today and can see why Robert thought it might be. My apologies for getting this wrong, in my defence it was new to me and looks very, very similar, but it is far far more subtle.
I tried thinking of other ways to explain what HYUFD was getting wrong to him. I thought of an example of replacing schools and pupils with bags containing marbles (some large, some small) in two boxes. One box where the bags are a mix of marbles and one where the large marbles are all put in one bag and the other bags have the small ones. But he will just say it is another hypothetical and not understand that once you prove it fails in one hypothetical you have proved what you are doing is flawed for all situations (proof by contradiction). I even used a variable for the number of large and small marbles so it wasn't specific and could be used for any mix. Then decided 'what is the point'.
I thought of other really silly examples; eg by comparing co-ed with non co-ed or by demonstrating that the more extreme you make the selection the more the results change without any changes in anything else i.e. nonsense. What puzzles me is why HYUFD doesn't sit back and think why are so many people on here telling me I am wrong and not go and check.
Also how does he not get that once you use a stat out of context its use is no longer factual. It was an obvious comparing apples with pears scenario or comparing a pre-selected subset of data from one sample to the whole set of another.
He thinks a stat used out of contest is a fact when it isn't, yet a proof by contradiction he doesn't see is a fact when it is. He doesn't know what a fact is!
Also I don't get the obsession of dismissing the use of maths and logic as being just a smart-arse as if it is something that should only be used in some academic circle and not real life. A bit like we have had enough of experts.
Of course there are valid arguments that can be put in favour of Grammar schools, after all I am only expressing an opinion (not a fact).
NerysHughes and his hospital face mask argument springs to mind as another example of a stat being completely misapplied and him not getting it when pointed out by so many on here.
So despite your attempt to turn this site into Maths.com not PB.com still no answer from you for the fact the worst local authority areas for Oxbridge admission are in comprehensive areas and selective areas are all well above average for Oxbridge admission. https://www.suttontrust.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/AccesstoAdvantage-2018.pdf (p 32)
Page 33:- Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
As a retired teacher I have been saying it for years. There is no reason why Universities can't offer on the basis of results not predictions. It would stop the spurious applications and over predictions (forced by parents and Headteachers I hasten to add). In this era of 2 semesters per year, It wouldn't be that difficult to move the start of the year to January/February to accommodate the new application process. References could still be obtained and sent to UCAS before the results are out. They can then be linked up to proper applications after the results.
It would be a good move in some ways but would also be the culmination of the increasing emphasis on exam grades so they become the sole criteria for evaluating pupils/candidates. When I were a lad some universities would give ultra low offers to promising candidates after interview (and possibly tests) either to "grab " them against the competition or because they were from poorly performing schools or a working class background. Exam results used to be treated more sensibly as useful indicators with flaws.
Also, it would be difficult to get rid of interviews totally. For vocations like medicine, it seems wise to talk to the actual wannabe doctors face-to-face, and I doubt that exams can give the fine-grained reliability that really competitive courses need.
What I'm not sure of is where the boundary between institutions interviewing and not interviewing currently is. A lot more places go on UCAS form and reference than seem to have done (ahem) years ago. Sixth formers don't do the trek round the country that I remember doing back in the day- which is probably a shame. But that might be a function of the choices made by students at the kinds of places I teach.
Good points. The example of medicine raises the question of whether outstanding academic prowess is a very good selection criteria. For medical research it clearly is but for being a GP or surgeon? Obviously doctors need to be academically bright and hard working but character, temperament and manual dexterity are surely other requirements? We've become exam obsessed.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
"Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians" Really? Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, David Lloyd George, Clement Attlee, Asquith (already mentioned). That is just off the top of my head. I think whether you liked them or not they were all "quite" good
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
"Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians" Really? Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, David Lloyd George, Clement Attlee, Asquith (already mentioned). That is just off the top of my head. I think whether you liked them or not they were all "quite" good
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
On average 106 people are shot and killed in the US everyday.
Ha! I was pondering the wisdom of my use of "bet". On a betting site. With informed investors...
But not a million miles out, that said, and I do feel vindicated-ish.
No, you were spectacularly, farcically wrong. You said, and I quote ‘I bet 100 people were killed by firearms in the US in the last 8 minutes’. Referencing the death toll in Kabul airport yesterday.
It turns out about 100 people are killed, in the USA, by firearms, every 24 hours - so every ‘1,440 minutes’, not ‘8 minutes’
Your odd desire to diminish the disaster in Kabul leads you to embarrassing errors. You are not ‘vindicated-ish’. Quite the opposite
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
"Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians" Really? Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, David Lloyd George, Clement Attlee, Asquith (already mentioned). That is just off the top of my head. I think whether you liked them or not they were all "quite" good
David Lloyd George was a solicitor, not a lawyer.
A solicitor is a lawyer. Lawyer is a generic descriptions for any professionally qualified person in the law
Scrapping the eastern leg of HS2 would be a disastrous decision. Billions have already been sunk into the railway, skills developed and land purchased. It would send a signal to much of the north that this is a Business As Usual Conservative government.....
Anyone who argues England doesn’t need better infrastructure because “home working” is underestimating how much life will flip back after the pandemic. And they could do with spending a bit more time outside of the big cities - WFH is a mindset of a particular part of the economy...
...In 2020, the @ONS reckoned that just 13% in Burnley ever worked from home. Whereas in Richmond upon Thames, it was 71%. Big parts of the country that need Levelling Up the most had a very different pandemic experience to the dominant narrative.
Given that HS2 benefits the big cities and the biggest most of all it seems a strange argument.
Now he's correct that different people and different economic sectors have experienced covid in different ways - I've said before that the last year has been near normal on the suburban industrial estates ie totally different to the city centre offices.
But the workers on the suburban industrial estates travel by car not by train.
And a road isn't just a way of getting from A to B - its an economic location by itself.
Build a road and along it comes economic development - housing estates, industrial estates, business parks, leisure facilities. Places to live, places to work, places to have fun.
That's not something any railway brings.
Is that true about roads though - at least the big ones. The new A14 Huntingdon bypass is a much superior road to the old dual carriageway, but I am unsure if it will unlock industrial estates and business parks. We shall have to see.
But without wanting to tempt Max, HS2 is mainly about capacity on the network. As such, it is probably more akin to a motorway than 'normal' dual carriageways and local roads.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
"Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians" Really? Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, David Lloyd George, Clement Attlee, Asquith (already mentioned). That is just off the top of my head. I think whether you liked them or not they were all "quite" good
Is it not rather that very few politicians are any good ?
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Dunno, but Wiki says Thatcher saw a law qualification as a necessary step for an aspiring politician. Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
What happened yesterday was predictable, as was the Biden response. What specifically does he have in mind - flooding Afghanistan with troops and fighting the Taliban to be able to fight ISIS? Or perhaps a truce with the women-hating Taliban to get access to chase the bigger ISIS enemy?
There are no good options now. Other than to complete the withdrawal with as little death as possible,
It's a revenge thing not a strategic thing so I think they just get some intelligence on where the leadership of the Afghanistan ISIS franchise is and drop a bomb on them from the sky. The Taliban will presumably be helpful with information about where to find the people in question since they're fighting them too.
Grave-looking press conference, grainy satellite footage, big smoking hole in the ground, dead brown people, and hey presto, the media will love Biden again.
As if those people will stay in the same place just waiting for the bombs.
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm.
Not one for the strategic vision are you. 100 people died at Kabul airport.
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
On average 106 people are shot and killed in the US everyday.
Ha! I was pondering the wisdom of my use of "bet". On a betting site. With informed investors...
But not a million miles out, that said, and I do feel vindicated-ish.
No, you were spectacularly, farcically wrong. You said, and I quote ‘I bet 100 people were killed by firearms in the US in the last 8 minutes’. Referencing the death toll in Kabul airport yesterday.
It turns out about 100 people are killed, in the USA, by firearms, every 24 hours - so every ‘1,440 minutes’, not ‘8 minutes’
Your odd desire to diminish the disaster in Kabul leads you to embarrassing errors. You are not ‘vindicated-ish’. Quite the opposite
Sorry, Topping, but I have to admit that Leon is correct..
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed. People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Abraham Lincoln wasn't terrible.
Thatch was a barrister..
I know. But as far as I know she qualified but didn't practise.
Mrs Thatcher did practise as a junior in tax law, iirc. I suspect much of the benefit of legal training for any MP is being able to understand bills which are necessarily couched in legal jargon and unintelligible to the lay person or Jim Hacker.
ETA one criticism that has been suggested is that lawyers want to solve every problem by passing new laws. I expect there is a PhD waiting to happen there.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
"Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians" Really? Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair, Ken Clarke, Michael Howard, David Lloyd George, Clement Attlee, Asquith (already mentioned). That is just off the top of my head. I think whether you liked them or not they were all "quite" good
David Lloyd George was a solicitor, not a lawyer.
A solicitor is a lawyer. Lawyer is a generic descriptions for any professionally qualified person in the law
I took @Cyclefree to be referring to it in its colloquial sense - as an attorney at law.
"Should Biden step down or be removed for his handling of Afghanistan? Yes," said Nikki Haley, the Republican former ambassador to the United Nations. "But that would leave us with Kamala Harris, which would be ten times worse. God help us."
Telegraph
Harris is a charisma void. A prosecutor who changes direction according to the direction of the wind. A conviction free zone.
But she's not an idiot. You don't rise to the top of the prosecution ladder in California by being a shrinking violet, you do it by being efficient at putting people behind bars, and claiming credit for it.
Harris, with the post covid boom in her pocket and being able to blame problems in Afghanistan on her predecessor, would be in a pretty good position.
Except she is crap in the run up to the primaries - quitting last time before even the first one took place
Well yes.
She did a very poor job, and was outshined by Buttigieg, among others.
But she wasn't the sitting President.
The only times she has really impressed me is when she was cross examining witnesses in the Senate. You could see that she would have been a good and effective prosecutor. But, like all too many modern politicians, she is seriously short of ideas and incapable of articulating even the few that she has.
Buttigieg, in contrast, is almost too articulate and clearly buzzing with ideas. So many you wonder if he has clear priorities or appreciates the limitations of government. He will hopefully have his chance to shine if the infrastructure bill gets through.
Very few lawyers - even good ones - make good politicians. Different skills are needed.People often think that articulacy and being able ask questions (and be "forensic", without really understanding what that means and its limitations in most political theatre) - which lawyers are good at - are sufficient to be a good politician.
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Madrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
Not that I am a particular fan of his, but surely Asquith was both a successful lawyer and a successful politician?
TBH I didn't know he was a lawyer.
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
RFK was on his way to becoming an exceptional politician.
Comments
And that HS2 East will do horrible things to the economics of Tesside Vote Houchen Airport, I imagine.
Their concerned British hosts asked them ‘what upsets you’ expecting a political response. But the Romanians said they were crying with shock, tinged with delight. ‘There’s just so much of everything, and things we’ve never seen’
A modern western supermarket is an incredible thing. Unprecedented in human civilisation. All the greatest produce from all across the world. We take them for granted. And, yes, British supermarkets are some of the very best. Only the French (carrefour, etc) really rival them. I’ve not seen as good anywhere else
Now he's correct that different people and different economic sectors have experienced covid in different ways - I've said before that the last year has been near normal on the suburban industrial estates ie totally different to the city centre offices.
But the workers on the suburban industrial estates travel by car not by train.
I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong. In fact to do so wouldn't be a proof because two sets of different stats have different criteria so it wouldn't prove you wrong. It would prove absolutely nothing.
However what I did do was a proof by contradiction. I suggest you look it up.
It wasn't difficult because it was clear to everyone but you that you were comparing a subset of one set to the complete set of another set, which you just can't do.
Now none of this proves whether Grammar schools are better or worse than Comprehensives, so doesn't prove whether either of us is right. We both have different opinions and both are as valid as each other, but it does show that the assumption you came to from a valid stat was unfounded. It was mathematically wrong. It was unfactual. It was incorrect. It was not true. Now that is a provable fact.
You don't understand any of this do you?
Maths doesn't stop in the classroom in goes into real life and you can't just ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply.
The data is a survey of branches of a few larger chains. Independents and others are not counted.
Applicants from schools in the lowest fifth for exam results has substantially different acceptance rates by school type. Students in independent and selective schools had high acceptance rates (69% and 70% respectively), but acceptance rates were much lower in other school types. In comprehensives and sixth form colleges the success rate was just 22%, and in general FE colleges just 20%.
So the success of independent and selective schools is not due only to better teaching and better exam results. Their applicants with worse results have astonishingly better chances of getting in – 70% vs 20%.
This might be due in part to gaming the system but a lot must surely be due to bias at the admissions end.
Reform the admissions process. End interviews. This would save a lot of student time, allow academics to get on with research, and remove bias. The time saved would also mean it would be possible to run the entire university application process after A-level results are known and the pretty girls and a token boy have jumped into the air on the front pages of our newspapers.
What is it? Perhaps your 23% deficit, meaning you immediately become Venezuela on Indy? Or perhaps a secular shift caused by Brexit? We are again the offshore islanders?
Perplexing times for Nats
'I don't need to produce any stats to prove you are wrong.' No because you don't have any!
You asked me to produce figures showing selective areas did better than non selective areas on Oxbridge admission, not just comparing grammars and comps and I did
Edit: I forgot Jenners was actually owned latterly by HoF, if not it would have gone long ago.
Though having said that 68% of Oxford students now come from state schools and 70% of Cambridge students come from state schools.
https://whichschooladvisor.com/uk/guides/which-state-schools-get-the-most-students-into-oxbridge
That is about right considering a third of A and A* grades at A level go to independent school pupils
The bakery sections of supermarkets in France are much better in the UK too. However, they are not a patch on the local boulangeries. I really miss at the moment fresh French baguette, you just can't seem to get something similar in the UK.
Being in Normandy by the sea the supermarkets there even had large water tanks filled with crabs and lobsters. I imagine there wouldn't be much demand for them in the UK!
Biden is permanently fucked by the Kabulclasm. You could see it in his sad, confused, rather rheumy eyes last night. However this certainly doesn’t mean the Return of Trump. The Democrats need to get a grip and find anew younger candidate and they will beat him easily
He is a gobby wazzock though. Claimed that he personally had delivered the Middlesbrough station upgrades for the trains to London. Trains plural then gets dropped to train singular and he isn't to blame. Then Darlo timetable cuts announced he isn't to blame. He triumphs the Boro Hydrogen hub idea, then isn't to blame when Northern announce they're cutting all cross-Boro rail services as a precursor to the Houchen Hydrogen Bomb express.
If you remember that for every HST moved off the current network to a new set of tracks around 3 pathways for local trains are freed up the calculation looks rather different.
A new HS2 station at Leeds, for example, would almost triple the capacity of the current Leeds station.
Para 2 - Yep no understanding whatsoever. Tell me honestly, did you understand any of this stuff? Do you understand you can't just pick up stats and do what you do with them? Do you understand that by giving an example of where your assumption about the stat fails, means that the assumption is false. Do you understand any of this?
Sentence 3 - I did no such thing
I am not going to google but I will bet that 100 people died of firearms activity in the US in the past eight minutes.
But yes- the underfloor plumbing that means that I can wander to the mini supermarket or maxi corner shop at the end of the next road, or do some tapping and get the things I want to eat in good condition with minimal fuss... it is a remarkable thing.
Then again, a US Wholefoods is a thing of wonder. The UK's ones don't really come close.
I actually check this stuff out, when I travel!
I’ve not seen superior anywhere else. Not America, Germany, Japan, etc
The single best supermarket I have ever been is the massive Carrefour in Monte Carlo. Perhaps unsurprising given the wealth of the likely customers
They aren't.
Starmer is an example. He may have been a good lawyer - though I suspect he was probably a bit more plodding than his supporters think - but he is an inexperienced and not very good politician. So far anyway.
Blair was outstanding as a politician - but he barely practised as a lawyer.
All the others - Bob Marshall-Andrews, Grieve etc were very good in their field ie as lawyers or as politicians opining on legal matters but much less successful when venturing away from that field.
The only exception I can think of was John Smith. Thatcher too - but while she trained as a lawyer, she never really practised - and she was I think a politician first and lawyer second. Her experience preaching in Methodist chapels was probably more relevant to her success as a politician than her legal training.
I love a google challenge
On average 106 people are shot and killed in the US everyday.
Cherie wisely stuck to law having been a Labour candidate in the early 1980s, Hillary didn't
He probably has. He’s done a tour of the former red wall for a book he is writing. He has a genuine feel for this stuff being from Gateshead himself.
In that time, for example, they've assassinated several potentially effective leaders who might have increased the chances of holding the Afghan army together, so it's their intent was pretty obvious. In contrast there's been very little evidence of the Afghan government developing any strategy to contest a Taliban takeover.
Many Afghan families had members in both the Taliban and the ANA. It was likely not exceptionally difficult for both sides to calculate the outcome of a civil war, and for large parts of the ANA to decide it wan't worth trying to fight, and to communicate that decision.
Whether they might now come to regret that is another question.
But your point is right. People age differently and there is a frailty with Biden that plenty of 78 year olds don't show. For me, with him, it's more physical than mental. Eg I listened to him yesterday on the radio and without the visuals there was little to no evidence of senility or anything close.
And still quite clearly you have no facts or stats to refute the one I posted earlier so you continue with the same tedious rant as before
But not a million miles out, that said, and I do feel vindicated-ish.
@HYUFD has a closed mind to any opinion which he does not consent to
https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/sebastian-payne/broken-heartlands/9781529067361
Odd that he'd reference Burnley in relation to this as it's utterly irrelevant.
Build a road and along it comes economic development - housing estates, industrial estates, business parks, leisure facilities. Places to live, places to work, places to have fun.
That's not something any railway brings.
https://www.tes.com/news/levels-2021-rise-3x-more-private-schools
Straight A* or close to are generally the admissions requirement for Oxbridge now
It seems it is also SNP policy
No need to worry about @HYUFD's tanks, just persuade public opinion and you have indyref2
Mind you getting in league with the Greens is the first real misstep Sturgeon has made and will not help
But even I wouldn't argue that HS2 brings any benefit at all to Burnley.
a) In successive posts you accuse me of using data and in the next say I haven't. What? To be clear I haven't.
b) You completely fail to comprehend that:
(i) You have misused a stat (even though umpteen people have pointed it out to you and it should be obvious to anyone what that misuse is.
(ii) You fail to understand that even if I did produce a stat from somewhere else showing the opposite using your methodology it would be equally invalid. Hence I am not producing stats that prove nothing.
(iii) However by providing a hypothetical example of where your assumption fails as I did, I proved your assumption was mathematically wrong. Once one has done that one doesn't have to do anything else.
Now that doesn't prove who is right. It certainly doesn't prove I am right. But it does prove you used the stats you used in an invalid way. You jumped to an invalid conclusion. Although that conclusion may still we right you did not deduce it in a valid way.
https://twitter.com/LukeSmithF1/status/1431180284544929792
Have some sympathy with that.
Still, excited to see which of the Mercedes causes a race-ruining crash for him this weekend.
Visually its worse, he looks OLDER than his many years. He also looks diminished. Humble. Shriveled. This is cruel but true
America is a superpower, used to being top dog, now in relative decline (but still bound to be eminent for deacades hence). It’s voters will surely yearn very soon for a non-mad younger president able to project a sense of renewed vigour and even renaissance.
UK: 60% in favour of a referendum
SNP: 60% in favour of independence
Former New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns has been left paralysed after suffering a stroke during a heart operation, his family has confirmed.
And I know that another department store I used to go to, now Fenwicks, in Colchester, is essentially trying to run the same model. I wouldn't be surprised if many other department stores are. It is not having its best year, I suspect, but it could yet return to profit.
She’s got the scan / midwife on Tuesday, so that should help. Docs today is face to face. Been here a couple of years.
Yeah I drive round most of Havering looking for a pharmacy open at 9pm, and when I found one they would serve me!
I was thinking of modern times really. And there are exceptions obviously - Lincoln as @Nigelb has pointed out.
Your hypothetical example only applied to comparing the average grammar to the average comp, not comparing selective LA areas overall to comprehensive LA areas overall, so is irrelevant in this context based on stats comparing the latter I produced.
What I'm not sure of is where the boundary between institutions interviewing and not interviewing currently is. A lot more places go on UCAS form and reference than seem to have done (ahem) years ago. Sixth formers don't do the trek round the country that I remember doing back in the day- which is probably a shame. But that might be a function of the choices made by students at the kinds of places I teach.
The starting point is that admission to Oxbridge for most subjects is incredibly hard. My son had 4 advanced Highers this year but worked at least as hard on his TSA as he did on them. Hours and hours were spent on his UCAS application and as many mock interviews as we could find were given. He was at a good private school but they seemed to have little appreciation of just how difficult it is and we sought and needed outside help.
What drove him to success was enormous determination on his part, a willingness to sacrifice sports and what most teenagers would consider a social life. He was (correctly) advised not to stand for any of the positions available to pupils in the school: he simply did not have time. A major factor in his success was the competitive pressure that was provided with an exceptional cohort, 5 of whom have also made it.
Applying this to the grammar school/Comprehensive set up and it seems that the criteria I have identified are far more likely to be met in a grammar school than a comprehensive. There is a completely artificial concentration of the locally available talent to provide the competition. There are classes that work at the requisite pace without distractions and there are more likely to me teachers with a better understanding of what was required. The ability to work at an exceptional pace is a prerequisite for exams like the TSA.
An exceptional child can of course make it from a Comprehensive but even with the outreach campaigns that Oxford offers (no doubt Cambridge has something similar) that path is much, much more difficult. They simply do not have the necessary support network.
Of course there is an entirely different question about whether Oxbridge entrants is a meaningful or useful test of school success. I would personally say not. It is much more important how the 99% fare than the 1% and there is good evidence that they on average do better in a comprehensive system. I favour comprehensives for this reason but I was not surprised at @HYUFD's claim.
Glad to see that you've relegated the SNP voting against the BJ Brexit deal down from real misstep status.
Far too many state teachers (not all by any means) have a kind of nationalised industry mindset where they are too accepting of mediocrity, indeed at the school I went to they seemed to revel in it. Independent schools generally set the bar high and go for it. Higher expectations= higher outcomes. Same in business and same in all endeavour.
It isn't his opinions I object to. They are fine even if I disagree. I don't mind that he supports Grammar schools, I'm fine with that also. I like many of his posts.
I just can't deal with people coming to conclusions using maths that is so mind bogglingly wrong.
I think I could cope with a fascist, anarchist or communist better.
Jimmy Anderson.
Do you really believe that @rcs1000 understands less about statistics than you?
It turns out about 100 people are killed, in the USA, by firearms, every 24 hours - so every ‘1,440 minutes’, not ‘8 minutes’
Your odd desire to diminish the disaster in Kabul leads you to embarrassing errors. You are not ‘vindicated-ish’. Quite the opposite
But without wanting to tempt Max, HS2 is mainly about capacity on the network. As such, it is probably more akin to a motorway than 'normal' dual carriageways and local roads.
Ironic really since her degree & subsequent work in Chemistry has had a helluva lot more playback:
'She's a trained scientist u kno!'
But, such people are ill-suited to twenty-first century politics.
Misuse of elementary mathematics (& especially statistics) is so widespread it almost seems unfair to pick out HYUFD.
OTOH, his readiness to use military vehicles ....
ETA one criticism that has been suggested is that lawyers want to solve every problem by passing new laws. I expect there is a PhD waiting to happen there.