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British education system doomed.

Forum Old Man/Woman's Club : Other - British education system doomed.

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It seems that British schools are about to start churning out dirty hippie communists.
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but isn't open source used to train hackers!!!!

------------------------------ I'm a git, deal with it.

Antec 1200,PC Power & Cooling 750,Gigabyte DS4-x48,Intel Q9550@3.4 W/Xigmatek S1283,8GB OCZ DDR2 800,ATI 4870X2,X-FI>CA 640C amp>Tannoy R300/Senn 595's
Reply to strangestranger

No, it's sole use is for creating whale huggers.
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Reply to Tom_Smart
- 0 +

this doesn't actually change anything, schools can use open source if they wish to do so, nothing stopping them.

Reply to Flakes

Yes there is: expertise. IT Expertise, in the US public school system at least, is spread VERY thin. Often, one will find students doing admin work instead of the normal government employee. In some schools, the IT coordinator is a volunteer with very little if any IT knowledge, let alone formal IT training. Unfortunately, though, in public education IT is one of the first departments to go when the "funding" "dries up".

All administrators (principals and SIs) really just want something that is going to work all the time with no one having to mess with it and will meet their budget.

Reply to dwellman

As somebody that supports commercial software developed for the educational sector and as a personal fan of Open Source I have one thing to say... Not a fcuking chance. The thick tw@ts I deal with can hardly cope with installing SQL Express and restoring a backup. Just the other day I had to tell a customer they had no option but to loose the last 3 years worth of data as they had not once backed up the system!

Besides MS has been doing a fantastic job of getting everybody in educational software onboard as a Gold Partner, helping them to make their code so ultimately platform independant that you could no longer port it even if you had to.

------------------------------ No I'm not on feckin Facebook
Reply to audiovoodoo

good thing they didn't lose their data, that would have really sucked.

------------------------------ I'm a git, deal with it.

Antec 1200,PC Power & Cooling 750,Gigabyte DS4-x48,Intel Q9550@3.4 W/Xigmatek S1283,8GB OCZ DDR2 800,ATI 4870X2,X-FI>CA 640C amp>Tannoy R300/Senn 595's
Reply to strangestranger
- 0 +

I hate it when my data gets loose.

Reply to Anoobis

I just hate.... Now where is Jef? [/old joke]

------------------------------ No I'm not on feckin Facebook
Reply to audiovoodoo

Three years?

Ouch.

Reply to dwellman

You would think they would at LEAST have something liek a RAID 5 server setup for Idiot Protection...


I guess this was all stored on one persons machine?



BTW, Open Source OS might be better if only for a few things. You can lock it down pretty well when you are done, and it won't easily start growing things you never intended it to have just through normal usage and updates.

Windows just keeps getting hairier and hairier every time I open it!

------------------------------ Mmmmmmmm...Beer.......
Reply to Ninjahedge

Other numpty moves of note:

The man that demanded we send somebody on site as his book count was wrong. On a remote session I find that he deleted all 32,000 books from his Library system. (They were hiding in our version of the Recycle bin)

The customer that proudly told me that it was the 4th time she had asked the same question today. My answer: 'Didn't you think to write down the answer after the second time?'. My manager actually backed me up on that one!

The tech that refused to answer my question as he had answered that one over 4 months previously to a different member of staff... because nobody ever updates or changes a config setting now do they?

I kid you not I still have customers in the UK education system backing up to 12 floppy disks every night. I sent them a free pen drive... they don't have USB!! Wages in public sector jobs are lower than in industy, what the hell do they expect for peanuts?? It's telling that the best tech's I deal with tend to be at the international schools.

------------------------------ No I'm not on feckin Facebook
Reply to audiovoodoo

Right here...

I've got to say, that may be the single most common mistake, and certainly the one I've seen the most over the last two months... Lose vs. Loose.

------------------------------ No more promise no more sorrow,
No longer will I follow.
Can anybody hear me?
I just want to be me.
Reply to JustPlainJef

Guilty. [EDIT] Well, it "losing" I have trouble with. . . always want to type the two 'o's. Also its and it's, but I think I finally figured out a mnemonic to help. But I have an excuse: am I dyslexic when it comes to writing and typing. You dango pedants[/EDIT]

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by dwellman on 09-23-2008 at 09:16:57 PM
Reply to dwellman
- 0 +

it's = it is

its = ?


edit: its' tits (if the group was composed only of women...right?)


Message edited by pike on 09-23-2008 at 09:37:30 PM
Reply to pike

I just try to remember it's is the contraction.

Reply to dwellman

Its / it's is a tricky one because usually you add an apostophe to a possessive, and this is the exception. It's easy to get confused with punctuation, as it has its quirks.

The lose / loose one is a common error on the gaming forums - I guess it's down to poor phonetics teaching at school, because the two words are pronounced differently!
Down here the your / you're error is still the most common. Again, I think people get confused because they remember that possessives have an apostophe so type "you're" when they mean "your". I don't know how people get it wrong the other way around though - if you're contracting "you are", then clearly there should be an apostrophe replacing the removed letters. It would be you'r' (and even that's silly because why replace a single letter?)


Edited to correct the bold tags.


Message edited by llama_man on 09-24-2008 at 10:27:11 AM
------------------------------ +46.53 Pedantry/+75 Wingding Approval/+27 Vindictive bastard/+7 innovative violence/+11 Scouse trophies/Bastages WD:9 RC:4 AV:1 [specials; cluster:2,leather elbow patched:1,pre-approved:3,first class (upgrade):1,multi-thread:1,double-barrel:1]
Reply to llama_man

hangs head in shame due to the your/you're scandal.

------------------------------ I'm a git, deal with it.

Antec 1200,PC Power & Cooling 750,Gigabyte DS4-x48,Intel Q9550@3.4 W/Xigmatek S1283,8GB OCZ DDR2 800,ATI 4870X2,X-FI>CA 640C amp>Tannoy R300/Senn 595's
Reply to strangestranger

One is left scratching one's head as to why replacing a single letter would be silly.
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Reply to Tom_Smart

I tend to scratch my arse, from an IQ point of view it makes no difference.

Reply to WingDing

A lot of the grammatical and spelling errors occur from a stream-of-consciousness kind of postulation on the net.

People type too fast.

A lot is also from foreign posters (English /= 1st) or school kids dat think dat itz all wt teh flowz!

Others are just typing juxtapositions where you get a quick-type-swap. "Teh", "Taht" being common ones (guilty).

Whatever. It only bothers me when one of two things happens.

1. When someone tries to post like they were trying to pimp out their page on MySpace/Facebook.
2. They were trying to be smart and discredit someone elses position and end up making eggregious errors in several areas while doing so. ("Your so dumb" etc etc).

>shrug<

Itz de int3rn3tz.

------------------------------ Mmmmmmmm...Beer.......
Reply to Ninjahedge

yours hers his its theirs

Here's a question: the proper way to pluralize a letter. When I was a younger, it seemed P's and Q's; however, I think last I read is that format is deprecated and I don't remember the substitute. Ps and Qs seems wrong. I've been trying out 'P's and 'Q's.


Reply to dwellman

dwellman wrote :

yours hers his its theirs


Indeed. I guess you don't add the apostrophe if it's an impersonal pronoun. I've never been taught it (I've just picked up what is right and wrong) but that would appear to be the case?

dwellman wrote :

Here's a question: the proper way to pluralize a letter. When I was a younger, it seemed P's and Q's; however, I think last I read is that format is deprecated and I don't remember the substitute. Ps and Qs seems wrong. I've been trying out 'P's and 'Q's.


Same question applies to abbreviations; e.g. what is the plural of ETA?

"Their ETAs were 5 hours apart"
or
"Their ETA's were 5 hours apart"

I don't know the 'official' rule, but (personally) I think adding the apostrophe is potentially confusing (there is no contraction or possession) and is superfluous. As long as you capitalise the abbreviation, then it is clear that it is a plural of an abbreviation.

------------------------------ +46.53 Pedantry/+75 Wingding Approval/+27 Vindictive bastard/+7 innovative violence/+11 Scouse trophies/Bastages WD:9 RC:4 AV:1 [specials; cluster:2,leather elbow patched:1,pre-approved:3,first class (upgrade):1,multi-thread:1,double-barrel:1]
Reply to llama_man
- 0 +

anyway it was discussed not to long ago to get rid of the apostrophe because no one know how to use it properly, they considered getting rid of it because you can tell what the word means through the context of the paragraph.

Reply to Flakes

I've gleaned a few interesting tidbits about 'its', in that it appears a realtively new addition to English-- 17th century or so-- and that its posessive pronoun and posesive adjective state (along with 'his') is the same.

Reply to dwellman

British education is safe. We have a Llama!

------------------------------ No I'm not on feckin Facebook
Reply to audiovoodoo

Flakes wrote :

anyway it was discussed not to long ago to get rid of the apostrophe because no one know how to use it properly, they considered getting rid of it because you can tell what the word means through the context of the paragraph.


That makes about as much sense as dropping the driving test because 80% of the cnuts on the road can't use a roundabout properly.
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Reply to Tom_Smart

ye, like taking the inside lane and going straight on, wtf is that about.

------------------------------ I'm a git, deal with it.

Antec 1200,PC Power & Cooling 750,Gigabyte DS4-x48,Intel Q9550@3.4 W/Xigmatek S1283,8GB OCZ DDR2 800,ATI 4870X2,X-FI>CA 640C amp>Tannoy R300/Senn 595's
Reply to strangestranger
- 0 +

sh!t Tom....

You guys were screwed back in 2006 when the RAF hired the american fukc up corporation EDS to handle its pay system.


Message edited by turpit on 09-24-2008 at 07:52:45 PM
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Reply to turpit

Ahh.. be careful because there are a lot of them now where that is actually the correct way to go. There are two that I cross frequently that are actually marked out as left lane for first two exits. Confuses the crap out of people from out of town.

------------------------------ No I'm not on feckin Facebook
Reply to audiovoodoo

nah, simple two lane roundabout, one exit to the left, one straight on and i have seen a few people try to squeeze into the one exit from two lanes whilst i am in the middle on my bike, ffs what are they thinking.

------------------------------ I'm a git, deal with it.

Antec 1200,PC Power & Cooling 750,Gigabyte DS4-x48,Intel Q9550@3.4 W/Xigmatek S1283,8GB OCZ DDR2 800,ATI 4870X2,X-FI>CA 640C amp>Tannoy R300/Senn 595's
Reply to strangestranger

dwellman wrote :

yours hers his its theirs

Here's a question: the proper way to pluralize a letter. When I was a younger, it seemed P's and Q's; however, I think last I read is that format is deprecated and I don't remember the substitute. Ps and Qs seems wrong. I've been trying out 'P's and 'Q's.



When have you ever minded your P's and Q's?

------------------------------ Mmmmmmmm...Beer.......
Reply to Ninjahedge

Fact!
When the opportunity to mow down a cyclist presents itself, lane discipline is often a necessary and acceptable casualty.
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Reply to Tom_Smart

AV has local roundabouts for local people.[/The League of Gentlemen]
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Reply to Tom_Smart

Intersections all over Chattanooga are being replaces with roundabouts. . . luckily in not so high trafficked areas, but still. . .

And another thing: traffic? Trafficked? Explain that!

Reply to dwellman

Laughter, Slaughter, explain that.
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Reply to Tom_Smart

Right after someone explains 'parkway' and 'driveway'.

Reply to dwellman

dwellman wrote :

Guilty. [EDIT] Well, it "losing" I have trouble with. . . always want to type the two 'o's. Also its and it's, but I think I finally figured out a mnemonic to help. But I have an excuse: am I dyslexic when it comes to writing and typing. You dango pedants[/EDIT]


FAIL.

------------------------------ No more promise no more sorrow,
No longer will I follow.
Can anybody hear me?
I just want to be me.
Reply to JustPlainJef

At the end of the day you parkaway your car. In the morning you drivaway your car. Now, you were saying?
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Reply to Tom_Smart

Speaking of lose vs. loose, one of my friends always tries to insult me by saying that I'm a looser for following the Cubs (he's a Cards fan).

I explained it to him with something along the lines of: Does it make you lose control when we say how much looser your mom is now that we are all hitting it?

------------------------------ No more promise no more sorrow,
No longer will I follow.
Can anybody hear me?
I just want to be me.
Reply to JustPlainJef

I think he meant that you park on a driveway and drive on a parkway...

------------------------------ No more promise no more sorrow,
No longer will I follow.
Can anybody hear me?
I just want to be me.
Reply to JustPlainJef

Denied.

'It' is not a confusion of its and it's. 'It' is merely an error of ommission.

------------------------------ Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize.
PRs:
-5K: 24:29
-10K: 53:50
Reply to dwellman

Parkway? Please forgive me, I speak ENGLISH.
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Reply to Tom_Smart

What ever you need to tell yourself that helps you sleep at night. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Reply to dwellman

...*chants*...

..."I have a big knob"...

..."I have a big knob"...

Reply to WingDing

I sleep fine at night, it's the afternoons I'm having trouble with.
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Reply to Tom_Smart

Nevermind


Message edited by dwellman on 09-24-2008 at 11:17:58 PM
Reply to dwellman

...*slaps dwellman*...

That's blasphemy, right there.

Reply to WingDing

I guess deliveries were behind, then.

Reply to dwellman

You said behind.

Reply to WingDing
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