The Night Mail

[AndyID]

To put it politely I was a f@#$ing lousy student. Exams terrified me. But I got l lucky when I discovered I had an aptitude for any type of digital logic. That boosted my confidence to the point that I was even able to overcome my fear of Thermodynamics. Now that is one subject that will test your understanding of a lot of the things you thought you actually understood 😀

[AndyID]

It has been a bit chilly here recently although it's going to warm up again. The overnight temps will drop to keep things comfortable.

 

It's an absolutely gorgeous morning here and as Lorna is off doing some artsy stuff with her painting pals IDSPIDY insisted we take a roof-down excursion into town to acquire some essential supplies of beverages, some of which might include a bit of alcohol.

 

I'm pretty sure most of the drivers who passed me were muttering something along the lines of "What does that old poser think he's doing?"

[Tony_S]

21 minutes ago, AndyID said:

Now that is one subject that will test your understanding of a lot of the things you thought you actually understood

I think it may only be understood if you get to absolute zero, and unfortunately you can’t get there.

[Hroth]

7 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I think it may only be understood if you get to absolute zero, and unfortunately you can’t get there.

 

Thats what I sometimes get in exams....

 

I definitely got it in my Latin exams at school!

I could remember what most of the words meant, but I couldn't glue them together...

 

Edited August 29 by Hroth

[SM42]

We were forced to do General Studies at A Level. 

 

All I remember is being bored senseless by watching The Ascent of Man on a Thursday afternoon and one of the  exam  questions being which piece of thread is attached to the sewing machine. 

The sort of thing you find in a child's puzzle book

 

We all thought it was a joke subject but it got me the grades I needed to get into a Polytechnic, soon  to be University. 

 

On the subject of road signs, it is true that people doing realise how big they are and it is evident from model roads where the white arrow markings are far too short in most cases. 

 

ION, I am v tired this evening after walking to Birling Gap and back from Seven Sisters. 

 

I'm not built for hills. 

 

 

Andy

 

 

Edited August 29 by SM42

[AndyID]

19 minutes ago, Hroth said:

 

Thats what I sometimes get in exams....

 

I definitely got it in my Latin exams at school!

I could remember what most of the words meant, but I couldn't glue them together...

 

 

Don't feel bad. I think I actually got a Scottish O Level in Latin after they kicked me out of French. (That might have had something to do with the fact that I used "café au lait" in a composition and I argued with him when he said it wasn't proper French 😀). I'd been to France but it was pretty obvious he hadn't.

[Northmoor]

57 minutes ago, AndyID said:

To put it politely I was a f@#$ing lousy student. Exams terrified me. But I got l lucky when I discovered I had an aptitude for any type of digital logic. That boosted my confidence to the point that I was even able to overcome my fear of Thermodynamics. Now that is one subject that will test your understanding of a lot of the things you thought you actually understood 😀

After failing and having to resit Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics in both of the first two years, I was told I could not select those optional modules in my final year.  How I laughed.....

[AndyID]

16 minutes ago, SM42 said:

which piece of thread is attached to the sewing machine

 

That's a pretty good question. Is it the bit that goes through the needle? Strictly speaking the bit on the bobbin just gets chucked through a loop created by the needle, or am I making it more complicated than necessary?

[SM42]

21 minutes ago, AndyID said:

That's a pretty good question. Is it the bit that goes through the needle? Strictly speaking the bit on the bobbin just gets chucked through a loop created by the needle, or am I making it more complicated than necessary?

 

Yes

 

You just had to trace the thread back though the Mr Messy like jumble to the start point and choose the letter that corresponded.

 

It really was the sort of thing 5 year olds get. 

 

The rest was multiple guess. 

 

The standard method being employed:

 

if in doubt the longest answer always wins

 

There is another basic rule of exams that I deployed in my degree course. 

 

The longer the question, the easier the answer. 

 

We had a seen paper for one part.

I.e,

Here are the questions.

 

You've got a week to complete it. 

 

Just one question to research and answer

 

I chose the half page quote on industrial history followed by the word discuss. 

 

Many of my fellow students chose the 3 word question:

 

Is money neutral?

 

They were pulling their hair out by day 5. 

 

I'd already finished.

 

Andy

Edited August 29 by SM42

[J. S. Bach]

17 minutes ago, SM42 said:

 ...snip...

Many of my fellow students chose the 3 word question:

Is money neutral? ...snip...

That is the simplest of the questions, the answer is one word:

"Yes."

[bbishop]

Lawrence isn't a Test batsman.

 

Pope isn't a Test captain.

 

Root must excise that bloody reverse scoop

 

Woakes is a reasonable Test eight.

 

Atkinson is a decent Test nine.

[SM42]

2 minutes ago, J. S. Bach said:

That is the simplest of the questions, the answer is one word:

"Yes."

 

Ah but it's not. 

 

Yes, no or it depends are the possible answers. 

 

Justifying your answer was the hard bit. 

 

Picking yes or no always threw up evidence to contradict your answer. 

 

It depends was just a rabbit hole to go down

 

Andy

[Tony_S]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

General Studies

Aditi’s first job after her degree and PGCE was as a geography lecturer in a technical college. However when she got her timetable there was a remarkable lack of geography. It was all General Studies. I think someone they thought was leaving didn’t . In the end she got the evening classes the other geography lecturer didn’t want. Years later while she was on maternity leave, the college closed the geography courses. I think they thought she might leave but she said she would teach sociology instead as there was a vacancy. 

Edited August 29 by Tony_S

[AndyID]

9 minutes ago, Northmoor said:

After failing and having to resit Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics in both of the first two years, I was told I could not select those optional modules in my final year.  How I laughed.....

Fluid Mechanics isn't too bad but there isn't one bit of thermodynamics that's intuitively obvious. I have a strong suspicion that many who lecture in that subject are like the sewage worker who was "just going through the motions".

 

I won't be hiring any more engineers but If I was and any claimed to have studied thermodynamics I would have responded with,

"OK, 'splain this."

[Mike Bellamy]

1 hour ago, SM42 said:

ION, I am v tired this evening after walking to Birling Gap and back from Seven Sisters. 

 

Two years ago we walked up to the top of Seven Sisters from the Birling Gap and were surprised to hear the distinctive sound of a Chinook helicopter which was flying East parallel to the  coast. As it approached we also saw a light aircraft flying alongside and we realised they must be filming. They flew past us and then circled around inland to repeat the exercise several times - and then they were joined by the display Typhoon with the Union Flag painted on the wings. All three then continued to circle around many times but every few circuits the jet, which had been going very slowly and flying nose up, shot off very high presumably to cool the engine before re-joining the formation. Perhaps @Dave Hunt could comment?

 

A few weeks later, Google search found this page on RAF News - somewhere on those cliffs in the far distance you will see me and Mrs B along with many other spectators !!

https://raf.mod.uk/news/articles/raf-typhoon-and-chinook-train-over-white-cliffs/

[AndyID]

3 minutes ago, Mike Bellamy said:

 

but every few circuits the jet, which had been going very slowly and flying nose up, shot off very high presumably to cool the engine before re-joining the formation.

 

 

A simple question of thermodynamics 🤣

 

I remember the late Douglas McGregor at Strathclyde Uni. saying there was a critical graph of altitude versus velocity(?) that helicopter pilots had to remember to prevent stalling. (I might have got that wrong.) Anyway, Douglas was a great guy. I suspect he might have spent a bit too much time at Dounreay.

[Northmoor]

10 minutes ago, AndyID said:

 

A simple question of thermodynamics 🤣

 

I remember the late Douglas McGregor at Strathclyde Uni. saying there was a critical graph of altitude versus velocity(?) that helicopter pilots had to remember to prevent stalling. (I might have got that wrong.) Anyway, Douglas was a great guy. I suspect he might have spent a bit too much time at Dounreay.

That applies to all aircraft.  Again, the Sqn Ldr will no doubt be able to correct my misunderstanding but I believe at the U-2's service ceiling, the cruise speed and stall speed are only about 50kts different.  At least at over 80,000ft you've got a lot of time to recover, which is fortunate as you're probably over enemy territory at the time.

[SM42]

We were also buzzed by two 0lanes in close formation, one of which I suspect was a Spit, although hard to tell at distance side on. 

 

Another appeared ( probably the second one)  later on its own and was definitely the right wing shape and was doing a few rolls after it turned inland 

 

I doubt it was BBMF, possibly a two seater. 

 

Typically I had forgotten to take the binocluars

 

Andy

[Dave John]

The rules of thermodynamics;

 

1.  Nowt's free

 

2.   Entropy, entropy, they have all got my entropy..... 

[AndyID]

1 minute ago, Dave John said:

The rules of thermodynamics;

 

1.  Nowt's free

 

2.   Entropy, entropy, they have all got my entropy..... 

 

That about sums it up. I prefer "Where the f*** did the energy go?"

[skipepsi]

1 minute ago, AndyID said:

 

That about sums it up. I prefer "Where the f*** did the energy go?"

I did OK with thermodynamics due to prior training in the RN I think. This is a Y100 boiler do not test for leaks with your finger... 

[AndyID]

Well Lorna's "Paint with friends" came to a rather abrupt ending.

 

She left shortly after another member started spouting off her extensive political views one of which was that Obama was actually gay 😀

 

Such is the level that politics ins the US has descended to.

[J. S. Bach]

Night Owl from the Piedmont.

[BR60103]

To pass the final year of high school, we had to pass 9 papers. 2 o them had to be English Lit and English Comp.  For Univerity admission, another 2 had to be a different language -- generally French (for Canada) unless you were taking a lot of languages.

I added to that 3 maths, physics and chemistry. There was also a 4th math called "Problems".  I tied with another student in the township for best mark -- 48/100.

These papers were marked anonymously and centrally so that the school couldn't bias the marks.

 

My math teacher was one of the markers for the Problems paper. I had talked to him after the exam and had mentioned that I had made a mistake -- subtracted a constant from a constant and gotten the same constant.  When I met him again, he said that he'd recognised my paper on the review but "wouldn't tell me if he'd raised or lowered the mark."

 

High school then had two graduations -- grade 12 and 13. 13 was called "senior matricuation" and was the university qualifying year.

In the 60 years since, they first removed the central marking (and possibly the everyone writes the same paper) and then abolished the year altogether.

I still have the exams and books of the previous N years' exams.

 

[iL Dottore]

6 hours ago, AndyID said:

….another member started spouting off her extensive political views one of which was that Obama was actually gay 

So?

 

Even if he was, so what? What a person IS is different to what a person DOES (although sometimes they equate).

 

Ad hominem attacks are both inappropriate and ineffective. Ineffective because if you call - say for the sake of argument - HH a “cake stealing monster”, it won’t effectively get to him (as he knows he isn’t a “cake stealing monster”) and his supporters will rally behind him, saying things like “we’ve never seen HH steal cake” But if you attack him on what he does (“has anyone noticed when HH takes over cake distribution, the cake ration goes down”) it is factual and hard to contest (unless you lie - whether partially or fully).

 

The problem with politics in many rich democracies is that it has been corrupted by the rise of the professional politician (y’know: PPE or law at Uni, a short spell in a non-job, then parachuted into a safe seat) who have encouraged the “nutters” and extremists on both sides of the political fence.

 

The result, as we are seeing now, are policies - from both left and right - that are designed to excite the party faithful, contain the extremists and which do little to benefit the majority.

 

Political parties, in many instances, have long stopped being a certain socio-economic political philosophy made tangible and have now become cults. And with cults you get cultists….

 

(and so back to Andy’s original post)