I suspect the easiest way would be to ban advertising things designed to appeal to children, which is content-based rather than reader-based and cuts with the grain of some previous restrictions in the UK (no junk food ads on children's TV, for example, no tobacco add at all). It's intent-based and so less gamable, and would tank the value proposition of British kids online, if enforced, by lowering the CPM rate.
I'm not convinced it's a good idea, FWIW, but it would be a lot less crappy than age verification.
You're right to be concerned about thinktank-washing, but FIPR themselves are fine: one of the academic:policy bridge groups rather than an astroturfing organisation funneling dark money.
I don't always agree with their stuff, but they're good faith actors.
Agreed, but there are differences between different classes too: the students vary somewhat in intrinsic quality and motivation, and in those years I've done a particularly good job of teaching and motivation the results can be better overall because the students are putting more effort in.
Similarly the other way. There are classes I've given no first class (~A) marks in, because nobody earned one. Still a curve in practice, but with the top at an upper second.
I think this is more of a style issue than one of correctness: lots of high-quality typeset output has used em dashes for parenthetical phrasing and plenty has used (spaced) en dashes. Bringhurst is a partisan for the en dash, for example, saying that "The em dash is the nineteenth-century standard, still prescribed in many editorial style books, but the em dash is too long for the best text faces." (/Elements/ version 2.5, p.80).
Of course, if we collectively shifted to the spaced en dash then LLMs would eventually follow; it's not clear to me that any simple and deliberate sign of humanity could remain exclusive given the incentives for machines to replicate it.
I fitted a Bafeng mid-drive motor to my city bike and it's fabulous for hills. Because the power goes through the existing drivechain you can get high torque simply by switching to first gear. No minimum speed, power kicks in after half a turn of the pedals. Coupled with hub gears you can change at rest it's a marvel.
Even at the European street legal limit of 250W it makes acceleration trivial.
In the UK government records are generally covered by Crown Copyright (which is its own slightly more restrictive weird thing) rather than in the public domain. I haven't checked to see what the status of the court listings are, but the default is very different to the US.
British canals are smaller than you imagine, and were even when they were commercial waterways. The standard lock widths are only 7ft or 14ft (2.1m/4.3m) so the boats are narrow, proportionally long, and very small compared to a Rhine barge or something.
As with the railways, we built early, to a small gauge, and lived with the consequences of that later.
There was a big canal bank collapse in December, and you can see in news photos the drained bits of the canal around the hole. The boats sitting on the canal bed are barely lower than they are normally when floating. Looks like 4 feet deep.
This depends a lot on where you are. I've lived in York, Darlington, Leeds, London, Oxford, and Liverpool for decent periods and used buses in all of them regularly. Only Darlington was really unpleasant for buses - they were often every half an hour and if one came early and you missed it you would be left in the cold for ages without information.
Oxford was great (though cycling was even better); Leeds, Liverpool, and York were perfectly fine, with regular and reliable services; London's are famously efficient.
Antisocial behaviour isn't honestly that common in my experience, though I'm sure that varies by location. Had some aggro in London once, and again on a London night bus. The football special to the LNER stadium in York was properly boisterous, and quite threatening to the poor away-supporting family on the lower deck, but that at least carried a copper to make sure nothing stupid happened. Other than that, I've only ever really seen loud schoolchildren - who can be annoying but have never caused difficulty for anyone outside their group. I've honestly seen worse behaviour on the tube (and been the object of it on Cross Country Trains).
Unfortunately, I've encountered antisocial behaviour on many occasions on buses. Had one guy sit opposite me and proceed to insult me about my clothes. I went over to the driver to complain (I had said nothing and this point) and the driver threatened to throw me off. Also had people hit me on buses and trains. And witnessed someone sexually harassing another passenger — he stood rubbing his crotch in front of her and asked her to "finish me off".
Football fans are often bad. Especially on trains. I hate getting a train full of them.
Football fans are a bit odd. If you spend a lot of time in football crowds you get much more adept at telling when things are going to kick off and when people are only being obnoxiously loud. Both are annoying but only the first is actually dangerous. But the second can definitely make people feel unsafe. And given that you can't easily get off a train if you feel threatened it's a big problem.
When I was younger I got assaulted on the street five times, and it was always in improbable places and for no obvious reason. Some people are just shitty, some of the time.
The history curriculum is (like nearly everything else) nationally set. The content of the leaving exams is also not set by the school (but by the national boards). It's possible that one school has decided to do something daft, but honestly not likely.
The story reads like ragebait, TBH. Brits are absolutely as keen on extolling WW2 heroism as anyone else.
"In England, by law children are to be taught about the Holocaust as part of the Key Stage 3 History curriculum; in fact, the Holocaust is the only historical event whose study is compulsory on the National Curriculum. This usually occurs in Year 9 (age 13-14)."
So not Province of Northern Ireland, Scotland or Wales.
Note that WW2 is not a statutory requirement in any of the key stages although it does feature in the examples (which are non-statutory). And a reminder that history is a required subject only to Key Stage 3, so many students won't take it after they are 14 and won't study for an exam.
Reporting on education in the UK does tend to be rage-baity and most situations are more complex when you look at them a bit closer.
(I have never taught history and never taught in the school sector)
I'm not convinced it's a good idea, FWIW, but it would be a lot less crappy than age verification.
reply