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Commented on Monarchy versus the Panopticon
If this unimpressive photograph on the left is the best the reporters with iPhones could do, I would say that the Chicago newspaper made a mistake. But I wouldn't be surprised if photographers with iPhones would do a better job...
Commented on Short Story: Bit Rot
Ionizing radiation is a lot more efficient at denaturating proteins than heat is. This should be the very first thing you wonder about radiation effects: is the photon energy by itself high enough to do real damage, or can we...
Commented on The jet lag game
I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet: if you screw up your sleep schedule before the flight, the time that you're not functional due to sleep deprivation and the time you're locked up in an aluminum tube can overlap. So the...
Commented on Unbreakable (part 1)
Re: structural engineering terminology Toughness is another of those terms that aren't always used compatibly with their precise meaning in engineering: of two materials with the same strength and not-too-dissimilar shape of the response curve, it is the more compliant...
Commented on Big Guns[1]
... using personal insurance coverage to reduce the attractiveness of firearms ownership/usage... That's a very libertarian approach to the problem: allow everything and invoke the supposed infallibility of the "free market" to properly put a price on externalities. I therefore...
Commented on Big Guns[1]
there are very few spree killers in Finland, even though they've got universal military service. Well... that's really not a great example. It is of course true that there are very few people in Finland, and therefore very few spree...

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Greg. Tingey commented on Monarchy versus the Panopticon
Brett Dunbar @ 227 Not arguing with that. You did notice my proviso that: IF Comprehensive schools have proper internal streaming THEN They produce good educational results ELSE They produce shit results - especially for the brighter/more able pupils. ?? This is what has gorn worng, in fact ... the mad obsession with "mixed-ability" teaching ... a total educational nightmare....
Antonia T Tiger commented on Monarchy versus the Panopticon
I went to a Grammar school. It was "better" than the Secondary Modern, but that didn't make it a good school. It underperformed compared to other Grammar Schools. Comprehensives, I suspect, managed to combine the bad features from the previous generation. Even if they did have some advantages....
guthrie commented on Monarchy versus the Panopticon
Greg- what brett is arguing is not totally relevant to what you are, insofar as better overall outcomes with a comprehensive system, even if not streamed (I though they'd stopped streaming decades ago myself), especially with regards to social outcomes and the not throwing non-grammar pupils on the scrapheap thing. Plus it's been what, 40 odd years since grammar schools were abolished, you'd think there would be actual negative things clearly visible now, whereas by contrast we're currently led in both politics and the finance industry by people who went to the right schools and universities and still manage to...
Greg. Tingey commented on Monarchy versus the Panopticon
guthrie Again, I don't disagree with you. An awful lot of talent was wasted under the old system. But, it is pathetically obvious that mixed-ability teaching is a disaster, but is only "now" (i.e. the past 10-15 years or so) being slowly dismantled. And negative things are visible, as they always were ... there seems to be something worng with "British" management - as the current atate of the Brit motor industry shows, now it is not Brit-managed. Scotland, of course always did do education differently....
Brett Dunbar commented on Monarchy versus the Panopticon
In fact it is possible to do a fairly direct comparison between the four different systems, as different LEAs switched at various points they co-existed for decades. The conclusions of studies into this issue are as follows: First place Comprehensive Schools with streaming. Second place Comprehensive Schools with per subject setting. Third place Comprehensive schools with mixed ability classes. Last place Grammar schools and Secondary moderns. Comprehensives with mixed ability classes do worse than comprehensives where there is internal sorting by ability, but still do better than the grammar/secondary modern system. Switching to a comprehensive mixed ability is an improvement,...

Responses to Comments from Busy Bee

Common Misconceptions About Publishing—a series of essays about the industry I work in.
How I Got Here In The End —my non-writing autobiography, or what I did before becoming a full-time writer.
Unwirer—an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction.
Shaping the Future—a talk I gave on the social implications of Moore's Law.
Japan: first impressions — or, what I did on my holidays
Inside the MIT Media Lab—what it’s like to spend a day wandering around the Media Lab.
The High Frontier, Redux — space colonization: feasible or futile?
“Nothing like this will be built again”—inside a nuclear reactor complex.
Old blog—2003-2006 (RIP)

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