To find out who is best at passing exams.
But that’s about all.
Hobby Horse
Subjects about which I pontificate
Maintaining Mediocrity
If we didn’t stick dogmatically to a system of artificial targets based on age but let children progress through school at their own rate then missing a bit of time wouldn’t be so disastrous.
I’ve Got Algorithm
When the exam marking business is sorted perhaps it’s time to consider replacing the current system of GCSEs & A Levels for something useful rather than maintaining it for the sake of those who don’t want to admit their qualifications are a poor indication of ability.
(Posted at the point results had been published for those not able to take exams due to Covid-19 restrictions which showed downgrading for poor areas whilst richer parts of the country and fee paying schools received much better grades).
Words
I wonder to what extent articles about ‘X number of words that don’t have an equivalent in English’ just demonstrate the limited size of the vocabulary of those writing them?
It’s a red herring anyway as it’s the descriptive power of the language that’s important not the ultimate number of words. I imagine the people who write this sort of rot also rate Shakespeare’s plays by the number of lines.
E.I. E.I. A.I.
People who rely on auto correct might consider whether what they write is likely to be easier to understand with a spelling mistake than the substitution of the wrong word.
Letting a computer make changes and not checking them can come across as worse than the odd human error.
Home Taping Still Not Killed Music
And when you look at book publishers increasing profits not being passed on to authors you have to wonder if the emphasis on piracy when talking about artists earnings is intentional misdirection.
Hobby Horse Sated
From the Twitters
The European Copyright Directive has reared its unsightly head again and what I find notable about these regular Rights battles is that the one group of people who are ignored are those of us who actually pay for what we consume. It’s always so called ‘creators’ versus pirates and the rest of us are supposed to just lump it.
It’s definitely made me buy more stuff second hand and concentrate my purchasing on independent artists. Why should I support those who want to make it easy for the Government to clamp down on dissent by enabling a censorship system that won’t work to stop piracy.
Like the ‘Home Taping Is Killing Music’1 campaign the concentration on the debatable effects of piracy just diverts from the money grab by the big media companies and the business practices of Amazon and the like which is where artists money is actually going.
And we live in a backward looking era where there’s hundreds of years of proven high quality books, art, and media for new work to compete with and a vast over supply of artists. There’s a lot of good writers, musicians, etc. about but very few decent plumbers. Supply and demand.
P.S. And in a desperate attempt to save the word from its current decline to just a marketing phrase – this is what creative means.
‘In 1965 Seiichi Miyake spent his own money to invent tactile blocks (or Tenji blocks as they were originally known) to help a friend whose vision was becoming impaired.’
- It didn’t. ↩
Internet Rules Update
Before you label your website, videos and social media accounts ‘Official’ there should be evidence of at least one of the aforementioned that’s unofficial.
An Amateur Pontificates On… Contemporary Dance
Should you be so inclined Virgin Babylon Records have a sale on the go. They are home to world’s end girlfriend…
…still the best tune this century.
And modern dance is so much better with a tune. Due to Grants we used to do a lot of it in the olden days at the theatre where I worked. You’d spend two days rigging and forty people would turn up 1. They used lot of clever music but not much that tugged at the heart strings.
It didn’t help that too often the dancers would fall back on what I called elephant shapes, particularly when improvising. Coincidentally enough the exception was a Japanese chap with a patch over one eye who started his show Spinal Tap style in a cocoon, but rather more successfully.
I am of course twenty years out of date.
- My theory was that this was partly due to ‘Orsham being half way between London and Brighton with a side order of Chichester so folks keen on dancing (you asking?) were used to going to the posher venues there. ↩
Signifier
No one should have ‘Creative’ in their social media biograph or profile – if you are you should be able to come up with something better and if you can’t you’re not.