Other News & General Chat

[Stan]

37 minutes ago, Mpache said:

Every day we hear a new story regarding this. Certainly a serious concern.

Anything actually being done about that?

[CaaC (John)+]

On 04/08/2020 at 17:07, ...Dan said:

Massive explosion in Beirut

Wtf?

Bloody unreal that, it looked like a nuclear mini explosion with even a mushroom cloud appearing, I wonder how many more chemicals being stored out there just waiting to go off. 

[Mpache]

6 hours ago, Stan said:

Anything actually being done about that?

As far as I know, not much. Lots of complaints from the casual population really.

[Tommy]

I don't know where to put this, but I think it's a story worth to be heard. 

https://www.bild.de/news/ausland/news-ausland/saisonarbeiter-aus-polen-marcin-rettete-3-kinder-aus-dem-meer-und-ertrank-72295354.bild.html

So a Polish seasonal worker who helped harvesting onions in the Netherlands, saved 3 girls from drowning in the North Sea. While he brought them all close to shore, he himself lost his strengths and drowned. So so tragic, but what a hero. You were a good man, Marcin Kolczyński. 

[Stan]

6 minutes ago, Tommy said:

I don't know where to put this, but I think it's a story worth to be heard. 

https://www.bild.de/news/ausland/news-ausland/saisonarbeiter-aus-polen-marcin-rettete-3-kinder-aus-dem-meer-und-ertrank-72295354.bild.html

So a Polish seasonal worker who helped harvesting onions in the Netherlands, saved 3 girls from drowning in the North Sea. While he brought them all close to shore, he himself lost his strengths and drowned. So so tragic, but what a hero. You were a good man, Marcin Kolczyński. 

What an absolute hero. 

[Michael]

On 09/08/2020 at 23:47, Tommy said:

I don't know where to put this, but I think it's a story worth to be heard. 

https://www.bild.de/news/ausland/news-ausland/saisonarbeiter-aus-polen-marcin-rettete-3-kinder-aus-dem-meer-und-ertrank-72295354.bild.html

So a Polish seasonal worker who helped harvesting onions in the Netherlands, saved 3 girls from drowning in the North Sea. While he brought them all close to shore, he himself lost his strengths and drowned. So so tragic, but what a hero. You were a good man, Marcin Kolczyński. 

What a selfless, caring hero of a man. It is so tragic that he himself died in the process of saving the lives of others. What a brave man he was. With all the nasty deeds that certain people do in this world, heroic people like Mr Marcin Kolczyński give us faith in humanity. My condolences go out to his family and friends, the world has lost another lovely soul.

R.I.P. Marcin Kolczyński

[Michael]

Here we have an example of the opposite type of person to the one that Tommy reported. Mr Scumbag Stephen Gallagher 55, stabbed his father Thomas Gallagher 76, more than a dozen times after the pair had an argument over broadband internet speed. Thomas told his son to leave the house. But his son Stephen said that his father had irritated him, so he approached his father when his father was on the phone and he stabbed him many times, ignoring his father's pleas for him to stop. It is said that Stephen suffers from a form of autism as well as alcohol problems, but there is no excuse for the savage murder that he undertook. Only a low life scumbag would murder their own father like that. Sometimes I see the logic with the death penalty that is used in certain US states.

 https://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/britain/son-jailed-for-life-over-brutal-murder-of-mayo-native-father-39438382.html

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/son-jailed-for-life-for-stabbing-father-to-death-over-trivial-broadband-row/ar-BB17N3nK?ocid=msedgntp

[Stan]

what an absolute cunt

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-53737345

Quote

 

A sheep farmer claimed jars of baby food laced with metal had been placed in stores to blackmail a supermarket chain, a court has heard.

Nigel Wright is accused of sending letters and emails, signed "Guy Brush", about the food to Tesco.

Mr Wright had initially demanded 100 bitcoin from Tesco, worth about £700,000 at the time, a jury at the Old Bailey was told.

He denies two counts of contaminating goods and four counts of blackmail.

Mr Wright, 45, from Market Rasen, Lincolnshire, tried to extort the cryptocurrency between May 2018 and February this year for revealing which stores he had planted the jars in, prosecutors said.

This sum demanded rose to 200 bitcoin, worth about £1.4 million in February, the court heard.

Prosecutor Julian Christopher QC told the jury: "The defendant hoped to make himself rich by means of blackmail."

Two customers had found slivers of metal in baby food jars as they fed their children in November and December 2019.

One jar was bought in Rochdale, the other in Lockerbie.

There is no evidence any other products were actually contaminated, the court was told.

Wright also claimed salmonella and chemicals had been injected into cans and threatened to continue poisoning Tesco products if payment was not made, Mr Christopher said.

A draft of messages sent to Tesco was found on his laptop along with photos of food tins, jars of baby food and slivers of metal, the court heard

In one of the counts of blackmail, Wright allegedly threatened to kill a driver with whom he had had a road rage altercation unless he paid him bitcoin worth £150,000.

Mr Wright admits various elements of the campaign but claims he was forced to do so by travellers who had demanded he give them £1m and he was acting in fear of his life.

Mr Christopher told the jury it would have to determine whether the story of being threatened by travellers was true.

The trial continues.

 

 

[Dr. Gonzo]

12 minutes ago, Stan said:

what an absolute cunt

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-53737345

 

Wow what a mental story, but yeah... fucking cunt for sure

[Mel81x+]

15 hours ago, Stan said:

what an absolute cunt

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-lincolnshire-53737345

 

Tesco should spend the 1.5m and find the containers then make sure they are all fed to him in jail as the only source of food. 

[Stan]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-53751678

Quote

 

Emergency services are dealing with a derailed train near Stonehaven.

About 30 emergency vehicles, including an air ambulance, are at the scene with more continuing to arrive.

Smoke can be seen at the scene. It is not yet clear if anyone has been injured.

Torrential rain and thunderstorms have caused flooding and travel disruption across many parts of central and eastern Scotland.

Network Rail said it was investigating the derailment.

 

 

[CaaC (John)+]

1 hour ago, Stan said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-53751678

 

Just watching a report now on the Scottish news, the wife just said that she saw a report that the train driver died in the crash, it might have been caused by a landslide due to the weather. 

[CaaC (John)+]

 

[The Artful Dodger]

I'm not sure where to put this, but we're currently undergoing a huge scandal in terms of the UK education. Obviously A-Levels are disrupted, so instead of working out some way of testing the kids so it's worked out on merit they are awarding them based on various factors, and crucially, one of the main ones is how well your school has historically done. This is an absolute disgrace which is going to fundamentally favour the wealthy and public schools.

If you go to Endeavour in Hull you'll be downgraded, if you go to Tory Boy High in Hapley on the Wold you'll be handed good grades. It's a scam, these people are being betrayed.

[Dr. Gonzo]

10 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

I'm not sure where to put this, but we're currently undergoing a huge scandal in terms of the UK education. Obviously A-Levels are disrupted, so instead of working out some way of testing the kids so it's worked out on merit they are awarding them based on various factors, and crucially, one of the main ones is how well your school has historically done. This is an absolute disgrace which is going to fundamentally favour the wealthy and public schools.

If you go to Endeavour in Hull you'll be downgraded, if you go to Tory Boy High in Hapley on the Wold you'll be handed good grades. It's a scam, these people are being betrayed.

It’s unbelievable what they’re doing to these kids. This government never ceases to shock me

[RandoEFC+]

11 hours ago, The Artful Dodger said:

I'm not sure where to put this, but we're currently undergoing a huge scandal in terms of the UK education. Obviously A-Levels are disrupted, so instead of working out some way of testing the kids so it's worked out on merit they are awarding them based on various factors, and crucially, one of the main ones is how well your school has historically done. This is an absolute disgrace which is going to fundamentally favour the wealthy and public schools.

If you go to Endeavour in Hull you'll be downgraded, if you go to Tory Boy High in Hapley on the Wold you'll be handed good grades. It's a scam, these people are being betrayed.

I posted about it in the UK politics thread if you're interested in a teacher's thoughts.

Unfortunately going off the school's average results over the last 5 years or so is the best of a bad bunch in terms of fairness. It doesn't work well for newer schools or schools that are clearly on an upward trajectory, but realistically speaking, if you want to predict a cohort's rough outcomes, the best indicator is the school they attended in about 75% of cases. Sad but true.

If they had taken it school by school and aimed for the same average grade as the school's last five years then it would work out fairly in most cases. Not entirely fairly but as much as possible. However they seem to have used an over complicated algorithm which is apparently 150 pages long and of course it's top secret so it's hard to really trust it. You don't need that many variables to create an algorithm that fits in most cases. A simple method like I've described works for the vast majority of schools and colleges then you deal with the clear exceptions on a case by case basis. Applying a single algorithm to every single centre just isn't going to work.

The experience we had as a school is confusing. We had 10 A level maths students in this year's leavers. They were below the standard that we usually get on average so we put in credible grades for them in good faith and if they'd have been given what we put then it still would have been a worse set of results than a normal year for us. Still four of them got put down by a grade and we're not given any information as to why. It can't have been because they were over inflated for our historical results because they weren't and it wasn't linked to the AS grades they achieved in Year 12.

It's a real mess and the way they've changed the appeal system at the last minute and publicly said you can use a mock exam result as your grade if it's higher without specifying how secure those mocks need to be hasn't helped. Some mocks are done as a full mock exam in the exam hall with outside invigilators. Other "mocks" are done over the course of two lessons on two separate days which obviously isn't secure because they can go away and swap notes between those two lessons.

Anyway, I've ranted enough about this today so if you want more you'll find it in the UK politics thread.

[Honey Honey]

16 hours ago, RandoEFC said:

The experience we had as a school is confusing. We had 10 A level maths students in this year's leavers. They were below the standard that we usually get on average so we put in credible grades for them in good faith and if they'd have been given what we put then it still would have been a worse set of results than a normal year for us. Still four of them got put down by a grade and we're not given any information as to why. It can't have been because they were over inflated for our historical results because they weren't and it wasn't linked to the AS grades they achieved in Year 12.

Lol fucking hell. That means unless the algorithm has some other individual level variable data to take into account it has randomised who gets put down when all else is equal. 

[RandoEFC+]

3 hours ago, Harvsky said:

Lol fucking hell. That means unless the algorithm has some other individual level variable data to take into account it has randomised who gets put down when all else is equal. 

Not randomised, we were asked to rank the kids within each grade so if they decided we needed to demote a B grader to a C grade, it's the one we put at the bottom of the B grade list. It's still unfair though. I had two kids in my class who were capable of a B grade, I don't think it's fair on us or them that we had to decide which one was more likely to get it when they both could have gone either way had they actually sat the exam. In fact, this argument pretty much applies to the whole concept of insisting that the average grades can't be more than a few percentage points outside of the usual standard. 

A one-off exam isn't exactly a fair way of determining who is the better of the two either but at least in that scenario it's determined by what they've actually done themselves rather than our best guess as a school and the arbitrary line drawn by their algorithm. When I sat my A levels ten years back I already knew what grades I was getting before I sat my summer exams because the courses were modular and I'd already completed two thirds of the assessment for each subject. Sure would be handy at a time like this but Gove and Cummings decided it should all come down to one exam period at the end of Year 13 when they were running the Department of Education.

[Honey Honey]

23 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Not randomised, we were asked to rank the kids within each grade so if they decided we needed to demote a B grader to a C grade, it's the one we put at the bottom of the B grade list. It's still unfair though. I had two kids in my class who were capable of a B grade, I don't think it's fair on us or them that we had to decide which one was more likely to get it when they both could have gone either way had they actually sat the exam. In fact, this argument pretty much applies to the whole concept of insisting that the average grades can't be more than a few percentage points outside of the usual standard. 

Did teachers rank subjectively? 

[RandoEFC+]

42 minutes ago, Harvsky said:

Did teachers rank subjectively? 

We just had to do our best but we obviously used as much data as possible. The availability of mocks and other objective data varied depending on circumstances but no matter how many mocks you do, you have to use a hefty dose of your own judgement to try and get the order right because different kids take the mocks more or less seriously.

It's one thing ranking the kids in your own class but then the heads of each subject have to combine each of those classes into one big list having not taught most of the kids themselves. The whole thing was a nightmare for them.

Its turned out almost pointless assigning them grades now anyway. This algorithm has decided how many As, Bs, Cs each school is allowed so we might as well have just ranked the kids and sent the list in without the grades.

[Michael]

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has been poisoned. Putin's cruelty seemingly knows no limits. It's not the first time he's gotten his minions to poison those who oppose his authority. Navalny is reportedly in a coma and in intensive care. It's an absolute disgrace the way Putin rules that country.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53844958

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/screams-of-pain-heard-on-navalny-flight/vi-BB18aY2H?ocid=msedgntp

[Tommy]

On 20/08/2020 at 14:29, Michael said:

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, has been poisoned. Putin's cruelty seemingly knows no limits. It's not the first time he's gotten his minions to poison those who oppose his authority. Navalny is reportedly in a coma and in intensive care. It's an absolute disgrace the way Putin rules that country.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53844958

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/screams-of-pain-heard-on-navalny-flight/vi-BB18aY2H?ocid=msedgntp

They want to bring him to Germany, but apparently he's not in a condition for transport, which sounds fishy. A German medical plane is in Omsk already. 

[Michael]

4 minutes ago, Tommy said:

They want to bring him to Germany, but apparently he's not in a condition for transport, which sounds fishy. A German medical plane is in Omsk already. 

Yes mate and apparently the Russian doctors are claiming that Navalny wasn't poisoned. They are instead suggesting that his condition is due to metabolic disease, caused by low blood sugar. 

Clearly the doctors are following orders from the Kremlin. 

https://news.sky.com/story/doctors-ban-navalny-being-transported-abroad-amid-claim-of-kremlin-pressure-12053503

[Stan]

3 minutes ago, Michael said:

Yes mate and apparently the Russian doctors are claiming that Navalny wasn't poisoned. They are instead suggesting that his condition is due to metabolic disease, caused by low blood sugar. 

Clearly the doctors are following orders from the Kremlin. 

https://news.sky.com/story/doctors-ban-navalny-being-transported-abroad-amid-claim-of-kremlin-pressure-12053503

Sounds like the same people that dealt with the COVID doctors that mysteriously fell out of windows...

[Michael]

2 minutes ago, Stan said:

Sounds like the same people that dealt with the COVID doctors that mysteriously fell out of windows...

These types of things seem to only happen in Russia.