Re: Exam grades and stuff (OT?)

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:

Mandy <mandy2uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

real-address-in-sig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Rowland McDonnell) wrote:
[snip]

(which, btw, I got to teach despite not having QTS - which you
need if you want to teach the under-16s)

Ah right! What is QTS?

Sorry - the official `qualified teacher status' registration thingy
that
you get when you've done an approved teacher training course for
under 16s and you've been vetted and so on. I didn't have it, but
ended up teaching under 16s anyway. Not that /they/ needed
protection from /me/ - it wasn't that way round at all...


*nodding* It sounds like the kids you taught were like the kids that
went to the other school in the area when I was at school!

Kids are kids - school pupils haven't changed since ancient Egyptian
times.

Blimey!

Shouldn't be a surprise; but we know that they're the same because the
whinges about 'em from the schoolmasters have survived in writing.

[snip]

*nodding* It sounds like you should have been allowed to do more
than you actually did at school!

<puzzled> again. Not sure what you mean by that. What I should have
been `allowed' to do was attend properly run classs that had learning
going on in them; but the school did not offer anything like that.


Oh right :o(

None of my classes permitted me to learn anything from the teacher -
not at high school. I learnt maths, physics, and chemistry because I
*could* learn those without input from the teacher. I could have
passed Eng Lang O level when I was at middle school (they did teach
English properly; I learnt nothing from high school English lessons).
Everything else, I failed. Like I said, I learnt nothing from the
teachers at high school - it had nothing to do with being `allowed' to
do stuff and everything to do with the fact that the school did not
provide a learning environment.

Bummer :o(

The problem was that the school did things the old-fashioned grammar
school way (despite being a comprehensive; the last grammar kids left
the year before I turned up). I'd been brought up with new-style
learning environments at infants' school and middle school. I could
learn nothing from the teaching style I met at high school.

Look, I had `music lessons' from the start of my schooling to the end
of my schooling. I had instrument lessons from middle school to the
end of high school. I even got sent along to the local school's
orchestra thingy on Saturdays and to the `theory classes' that they
ran.

Do you know how much music I learnt? Nothing! I learnt no musical
theory at all even with the specialist classes - which involved being
given a book to work through that assumed the student was already
quite advanced and knew some musical theory. I didn't, so I could
understand none of it and could complete none of the exercises. It
was soul-destroying, especially when I tried to get some help and
received nothing but scorn at my ignorance in return.


Blimey! Where did the theory teachers expect you to have learnt the
theory from? Surely it was their job to teach you!

They were assuming that I'd been taught up to a certain level of theory
given the length of time I'd been learning an instrument: it was the
instrument teachers who should have made sure I learnt the theory. They
never touched on it - not once. I've only recently started to learn the
basics of it.

[snip]

Clearly there would have been no point in complaining about
that - he was just doing his job in the normal way of a
certain type of teacher.

It's a shame that you had to go through it though!

<shrug> It's how my parents wanted me to be brought up, so I
had to endure it. I was told that it was normal life, all
completely normal, and I just had to get on with it without
complaining and do well because it was all normal and I had
nothing to complain about.

!!!

Standard old-fashioned don't give a damn parenting: shut up, stop
whinging, and get on with it.

Blimey!

<puzzled> Erm? Why the surprise?

It doesn't sound like very caring parenting!

Most people don't care about anyone but themselves.

[snip]

[About the bike - it was one of these:
<http://www.classicmechanics.com/bissue/2003-04.htm>, but it had
been modified to scream like the early models and go just as fast
too. There is something about Kawasaki triples that does strange
things to people. This sort of thing turns up:
<http://www.bigbikeriders.com/48cyl.htm>. Start out with 16 250cc
three cylinder engines and turn 'em into a 48 cylinder lump and put
it in a motorcycle. Why not? Why not? Because it's mad, that's
why.]

Wowsers! Those sorts of bikes must be dangerous to ride!!

Something like that isn't particularly dangerous - it's not
particularly practical at all so you'd rarely ride it and if you did
ride it, you'd be careful.


*nodding*

If you tried to ride it all day, I suspect the engine would overheat
and seize.

But surely that's the same for all motorbikes?

Any properly designed motorcycle can run flat indefinitely in hot
weather and not run into any trouble at all. If you stop for fuel and
routine servicing you can expect even a high performance motorcycle
engine to run without trouble flat out for 100,000 miles and more.

How do I know? Well, running engines continuously is known to be good
for 'em.

I recall reading that when Castrol tested one of its motorcycle oil
formulations, it did so by buying a bike and hiring a rider and having
him ride the bike flat out for about --- erm, I think it was six weeks
(8 hrs/day) to run up 100,000 miles of wear or whatever it was. And the
bike was a Honda Fireblade - flat out means `over 150mph'.

It's certainly not exceptionally powerful - 48 cylinders, 6
crankshafts, and so on mean a lot of losses, it's only 4.2l total
capacity, and one has to wonder if the owner's managed to get
everything set up right to get all the bits working in perfect sync.
If not - well, you get even less power...


Maybe it's because I don't understand bikes and I've never been on one,
but wouldn't the 48 cylinders give it more power?

More power, yes; but not as much `more power' as you'd think because
while you get more power from the more cylinders, you also get more
losses because of all the extra bits.

And finally: a Kawasaki 2 stroke triple (almost any of 'em) can be
ridden so the fuel economy drops to about 25mpg. They never give good
fuel economy. Think about what happens when you've got the equivalent
of 16 such engines on one machine...


Was that the long bike in one of the pictures on the websites you pointed
me to yesterday? If not then I can't imagine it... sorry!

They normally look more like this:

<http://www.kawasakitriplesclub.co.uk/>

(the site has pics of bikes if you look, not just the totty on the home
page why do they do that? I mean if I want pictures of cute girlies
I'll go get 'em; why this urge to spoil the view of a nice motorcycle by
putting some bored bint in the way? Argh. Anyway, I've always been
more interested in women I can get my hands on than women in pictures.)

The dangerous bikes are the standard ones from the showroom. Once
upon a time, bike owners would spend money on new bits to make their
bikes go faster or handle better. These days, such modifications are
not needed because the showroom bikes are powerful enough and handle
properly. Rather a large fraction of normal showroom bikes outperform
full-on race bikes of 20 years ago.

Blimey!!

You have no idea how `blimey' the situation is. It really is appalling,
and I'm not surprised lots of people want to ban motorcycles.

I mean, I'm not exactly Mr Clean when it comes to the Highway Code, but
22 years' riding experience tells me that I am at least safe. I see
some of the idiots out there these days - and oh boy, they're riding
150mph+ semi-guided missiles in the way that me and my peers used to
ride around on our 125cc bikes and when someone passed his test and got
something that could hit 120mph, we were worried that something so fast
would be bound to kill the silly sod - except that he *did* learn to
ride better, so didn't get killed by his bike. But these moderns don't
seem ever to learn to ride properly.

[snip]

btw, my wife keeps talking about buying a bike capable of exceeding
160mph. I keep trying to talk her out of it - but if the truth be
told, I suspect it'd be me whose life would be most likely to be lost
due to riding the thing.

What is the point of high speed bikes though when the top speed on a
motorway (or is it dual carriageway?) is 80mph??

It's 70mph, not 80mph - and that applies to motorways and dual
carriageways for cars, motorcycles, and light commercial vehicles.
There are different rules for heavy vehicles.

But German autobahns have no overall speed limit - so why refuse to let
people buy bikes with power that has a place somewhere?

Thing is, if you want a bike that'll carry two people and luggage
comfortably along British motorways, it'd best have a solo top speed
potential of at least 120mph or you're likely to have a stressful
journey - in my experience, that is. You don't need to be going fast to
need plenty of power from time to time - if you want decent acceleration
to be available along with the ability to maintain adequate cruising
speed without strain up hills, you need enough power to go really quite
fast indeed when solo.

Okay, the Harley-Davidson crew do it the other way and pootle along at
the speed of a lorry, but coppers who taught me to ride taught me to
`make good progress' on the road.

But you do have a point. I recall reading a magazine article by Barry
Sheene, in which he commented on 140bhp in a roadbike as `bull*** -
no-one can use that on the road'. At the time, his road bike was 60-odd
bhp, considerably less than the 84bhp listed for my bike. And if that's
good enough for him, it should be good enough for anyone, right?

Not so, actually - because he was a very, very good rider who could
safely use the full power range of the most hairy bike engine. It's
hard to make good progress in a *safe* fashion on the public highway
when you've got to thrash the nuts off your bike's engine (that's
technical jargon, by the way). But he's quite right that no-one needs
140bhp on any sane road - it's only useful for belting down the autobahn
at warp speed.

It turns out that with the traffic we've got on the roads and the power
delivery of motorcycle engines and all that - well, if you want to have
a safe, relaxing time enough power to get you up to 145mph isn't at all
excessive. And once you factor in an occasional need to accelerate hard
two-up with luggage at motorway cruising speeds - well, sometimes, a bit
more power would be nice.

Thing is, I'm very rarely in a position to use full power - most of the
time, the benefit I get from having such a huge amount of power
available is more than the engine also has a lot of bottom-end poke so I
can accelerate smartly without any frantic engine revving, which annoys
the neighbours and isn't as easy to control as the lazy rubber-band
propulsion I usually use.

Look, you want to be accelerating like you've been given a good old
shove forwards. Full power is more like being belted by a rocket and is
contraindicated around town. When you've got to put all your attention
on to managing the acceleration, you can't pay attention to the road
around you well enough for adequately safe riding and that means it's
suicidal insanity to use full power except in particular circumstances.

And that's the big reason why hugely powerful engines are useful - you
can get access to a good deal of bottom-end poke (more tech jargon) and
that makes for safe riding at a decent pace rather than loony riding at
a loony pace - which is what you'd get if you had to thrash the engine
to get the same amount of power.

[snip]

Rowland.

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