Teraknor

Before you panic, the answer is no, you would be an idiot to even try. Having a conversation with other experts in my field today; it would appear that out there hapless souls are fighting with assessment experts. Knowing nothing about our discipline; assume that if A is true, then it has to be the same for B ... defragging a hard drive for some desktop operating systems; which make continual changes to the data stored ... true. Attempting to defrag a smaller system that is managed on a relative storage shoe string; not true. Worse was when the conversation went onto the notion that a desk top publishing application could be used to produce an animation. Fortunately these are all souls who were sharing the incredible stories as an example of their disbelief. So, if you are wondering what is happening to the general standards of our computing education out there. Read and lament; it does not bear consider what other nightmarish notions assessment professionals have.

I would believe the junk mail ate your email hence why I did not reply ruse.  If ... I did not already know that others from the same organisation I work for had been successful in emailing you My bulls**t filters were broken My knowledge of email technology, whilst not ubergeek in this domain, is sufficient to understand how the rules are generally applied. So, dear person from other organisation; instead of trying to win my heart, you are making more a cynic of me. Hopefully fun will be had when we meet.

In my twisted mind, there are two kinds of 'yes men'. Those who say yes, to appease and agree with those they feel they have to kow tow to. Then there are the others, who say yes; as they feel a sense of duty, often misguided. I often get last minute demands on my time; often by those who are a little hapless in their diary organisation. Requests for meetings at unusual times, often within the next seven days etc. For this, I find there is power in saying 'no', not out of any surly obstinance, more as a process of educating souls that I am the sole manager of my diary. If you want in, or feel that you need me, plan ahead, it can work. My diary seems to have a long lead time, often with the forthcoming two months accounted for as events roll on. Don't be surprised if I agree to something that is last minute; maybe it might just be something that suits me.

Well that probably won the biggest mouthful, wordy blog title in a while. What can you do with a delivery partner that suddenly decides that they cannot offer a venue/date previous agreed. Drop em, me thinks ... Sadly last year, they had a change in relationship owner, after making another serious mistake. They do not seem in my biased view to quite understand the customer and their relationship with their customers.

Sit back and be amused; a while ago I watched an international organisation shoot itself in its own foot through lack of communication. In an epic left hand not having a clue what was going on with the right. As it is a matter of confidence, details cannot be shared, better to leave you guessing over what and whom it may be. Whilst rendering the thought that an investigation they started has been stopped by their own lack of communication.

From nine to one thousand and ninety nine, with over forty eight thousand in between. I started blogging in 2010, a late comer and still practising this art. I am aware of my eclectic audience and the different motivations you (all have) in coming here. Having made over five hundred posts, looking back they do range from the sublime to possibly ridiculous. Over time my hit rate has moved up as well, there has been no deliberate effort, more a circular motion trying to understand who reads what, where and when. So do I have bloggers block, yes, of course, wouldn't you sometimes I have long gaps. Occasionally it is a verbal (written) tirade.

Many reading this are blessed with the ignorance of not needing to know how English funding works for post 16 education. To say that the theory of relativity sometimes seems simple and that everyone has agreed on this for a long time, gives an indication of the nightmare it has become. Coming this September is another change. Like we have had a few in our time. So, what is new, the funding is no longer qualification lead, instead student lead. The pro for this is that there is the same base funding per student per college, irrespective of the qualification. So A level students cost the same as vocational, resolving at least a lifetime of disparity in favour of the more academic qualifications. The con, for many colleges, is that some named qualifications used to attract more funding, so now the temptation is to teach within the hours available per learner and the hours only. Because now the design of the funding allows for multiple qualifica...

Many reading this, have heard of the Richter scale, some even the Beaufort scale, both mechanisms to allow us ‘average’ souls to understand the impact of an earthquake or the magnificence of a windy day. With all of this in mind, I feel that it is time for a new and ultimate measure of impact, one of a more human and intimate nature … we need a : Bullshit scale It will take time for this scale to standardise and may need to be ratified to ISO requirements. Unlike many scales that operate in the positive, the bullshit scale needs to be bidirectional using positive and n egative indices to represent the quality and impact of bovine ordure. To describe the scale in simple terms, we need to look at zero and the outer values. -5 0 +5 The best bullshit money could buy, the finest quality, undetectable, hence the negative number No bullshit present The worse bullshit, easy to detect and so obvious, th...

If you are as old and geeky like I, you may know what a gosub loop is. Hailing from the BASIC programming language, gosub (or goto subroutine) could be used to call another set of code and if misapplied, used to continually (recursively) call the same code from outside and well as within itself. In the half-dim world of the zombiecrat the gosub notion seems to become part of their mantra. Shuffling along mindlessly doomed to repeat themselves. Today I had to laugh as a frustrated colleague was explaining how a process (once easy to complete), now needed a form filled in to carry out the same process. This was not the amusing part, amusing was when they shared that when a form was filled in to enable the process to be completed. They needed another form filled in to explain why the other form was being completed. Even the fevered mind of Kafka, could not have dreamed such a pointless process.

Today, whilst waiting for my wife at a local well known coffee retailer, I was approached by one of the baristas. Spotting that I had one of my fave Ubuntu teeshirts, he came and asked who I worked for. Happy to share, he described that having graduated from a local university he has been hunting for work in programming. In a world desperate for programmers, he is caught in the infamous catch 22 skills gap. He has the academic experience, has a BSc, also a MSc, but no commercial experience. Caught in a pool where there are many with the same skills, caught in a trap where employers bemoan the shortages yet cannot escape their own self-imposed traps.  This soul was keen for anything, for any experience, for an internship; whilst I have personal reservations about the internship culture, I sympathise with his desire to do anything.  After all he is holding down a job, serving coffee for a living, seems very personable and could be worth a punt. I cannot...

Sometime back in 2008/09, there was some work accomplished nationally that finally set an area of computing education on the right track after years of work. From framework to framework, much was achieved. In four years hence, it would seem that the ground gained is rapidly being lost, instinct tells me that by 2015, unless there is a gathering of the like minded.