Teachers deciding Exam Results

I read the following article:

Teachers to get sweeping powers to decide exam results in England

As I said last year on facebook (and which resulted in me having to block a certain relative on there) this makes the grades meaningless.  Someone who brings in an apple everyday for the teacher will get high grades, those who take issue with the teacher's thoughts will get low grades (precisely those pupils/students who might tend to be the most intelligent).  And, of course, rampant grade inflation means that the grades cannot be compared to historic results.  This makes it very difficult for Universities and employers to establish who has the most ability.  It's just insane.

Exams or tests should determine one's grades, and most certainly each school's proportion of specific grades shouldn't differ from that attained in 2019. 

Amazon: All comments on Customer Reviews have been removed!

My TV set is almost 14 years old, so I'm looking at TV sets on Amazon and reading the customer reviews.  I've just noticed 1 hour or so ago that there is no longer a facility to comment on reviews!  This is quite definitely not useful to the customer.  If someone makes negative remarks about a product it was useful to read the comments underneath to see if others had the same experience.  A discussion forum here confirms that Amazon removed the comments in December.  

According to that forum Amazon said:

While reviews and feedback are important to our customers and sellers, the comments feature on customer reviews was rarely used. As a result, we are retiring this feature on December 16, 2020.

I have noticed in the past few years that the comments are becoming more and more difficult to access. Indeed, in the past year, their existence was not at all obvious.  Someone even mentions that they were not possible to view at all on smartphones.  It is therefore scarcely surprising that the comment feature was rarely used.  The obvious solution, therefore, would have been to make the comments prominent again and to allow smartphones to access them, not simply get rid of them altogether!

Something else irks me about this.  I'd typed countless thousands of words in the comments underneath customer reviews, especially under my own review of the book The Myth of an Afterlife, where I engaged with the editor Keith Augustine. We each must have contributed thousands of words arguing (or sometimes, more accurately, quarrelling) with each other.  Have all these arguments/debates been irretrievably deleted?  I find this extraordinarily irritating.  Why on earth could they not have warned people beforehand that their comments were going to be deleted?  It is disgraceful that no warning was given. 

Also, because it is not permitted to provide links in the actual reviews, I had included a link in the first comment to my ~13,000 word full review of this book on my main blog.   Now potential customers won't be aware of this more complete review (customer reviews on Amazon are (or were) limited to 5000 words, so I had to omit most of my review)  Nor am I able to edit my review on the USA site to advise customers to google for my full review (since around 3 years ago I am no longer permitted to submit customer reviews since I have bought insufficient number of products from the USA site.  Incidentally, that's because for most products they won't post to my address in the UK!).

So, anyway, I'm far from happy about this.  I shall email Bezo.

22/01/2021 Edited to add:  I emailed Bezos, although it wasn't him that responded.  Here is their response:

Dear customer, 

Amazon is always innovating to improve our shopping and selling experience. 

Comments on product reviews were rarely used, and we are retiring this feature so our teams can instead build features that will delight more customers and sellers. 

Thank you for your understanding.  

Thanks for taking the time to send us your comments on COMMUNITY FEATURE. We’re continually working to improve the shopping experience and ensure we present useful information to customers. I have passed your message along to the team involved with future development of our Communities features.   

If you want to find out more about this or other Amazon.co.uk features, please visit our Amazon.co.uk Site Features Help pages:   

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html/ref=hp_16465201_bid_208917?n   

I hope this helps. We look forward to seeing you again soon. 

Warmest regards, 

Mikyle Lakay

Amazon.co.uk

Your feedback is helping us build Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company.

First of all why does the response say "Dear Customer" rather than "Dear Mr Wardell" or even "Dear Ian"?  It makes me suspect that he or she is just sending me a generic email.  Which might be the reason why my points have been ignored.  Also, why is Amazon UK responding?  I used Jeff Bezo's primary email address -- jeff@amazon.com -- and he doesn't reside in the UK.  I responded with the following:

Hello, first of all why hasn’t Jeff responded, and why is Amazon UK responding?

You say:

"Comments on product reviews were rarely used, and we are retiring this feature so our teams can instead build features that will delight more customers and sellers."

But, as I said in my original email to Jeff, the reason why this is the case is, first of all, because Amazon doesn't make these comments available at all on mobiles and tablets, and secondly, for those who do use browsers, the very existence of the comments won't be noticed by the casual user compared to 3 or 4 years ago. You had to make a couple of clicks to get to the comments.

So, presumably, the comments are rarely used, not because people are not interested in them (why on earth would that be so anyway?) but rather because they are either not there, or their existence is only noticeable with those well versed with the Amazon site. 

The comments used to be directly below the reviews and couldn't be missed. The pertinent question here is, were they also rarely used then? I very much doubt this! In which case it has absolutely nothing to do with the assertion that people have no interest in the comments.

Pass this on to Jeff will you??

Ian Wardell 

Update 25/02/21: I got another response, but once again not from Jeff.  A different person from last time though.  They said:

"Hello Ian,

I am Bryce of Amazon.co.uk's Communities Escalation Team. Jeff Bezos received your email, and I am responding on his behalf.

Comments on product reviews were rarely used, and we are retiring this feature so our teams can instead build features that will delight more customers and sellers. This is applicable to both the UK and US marketplaces."

So, yet again, my reasoning has simply been ignored which invites the question of why they bothered to respond at all.  What do I do? Just copy and paste my previous argument that this is wholly irrelevant? They simply don't take a blind bit of notice of what I say. No-one ever takes any notice of what I say. Might as well not bother communicating with anyone.

Maybe a different tack is in order. I could email back and threaten to boycott Amazon. 

 

 

 

I've always been an Outsider

I've never fit in, always been an outsider and always will be.  I think that's unfortunate as people don't like those who think differently to them, hold different attitudes, values, aspirations, you name it.  

I used to try and be like them, echo their sentiments, make others like me. But, I think they could see through me, they realised I was different, that I was . . am . . totally other.  Now I don't bother and am just myself.  I now embrace my otherness.

Covid could cost children £350bn in earnings due to lost learning?

According to this article the Institute for Fiscal Studies claims that Covid could cost children £350bn in earnings due to lost learning.  The article says: 

The IFS estimates that such a substantial loss of learning is likely to be followed by lower skills and qualifications for children at school during the pandemic, resulting in permanently lower incomes during their careers.

What absolute nonsense.  All school kids from 4 to 18 will have lost perhaps a year or so of schooling.  Are employers not going to employ any of them?  Just employ older people instead?    How often do people use matrices or calculus or know about fronted adverbials, or utilise their knowledge of trilobites and igneous rocks?  Let's face it, there's precious little that kids learn that will translate or be useful to their careers. What employers should be interested in are peoples' skills for the job and how hard they will work.  The former will be acquired from experience, not having a load of irrelevant knowledge in their heads. 

Oh yes, and I'm sure most adults won't have retained the vast majority of stuff they learnt at school anyway.  Who knows what matrices are?

Be Yourself

I don't think we should be constantly asking ourselves what a normal person would do and say in an attempt to emulate them. Nor should we simply agree with something merely because everyone else does in order to fit in. There's not enough independent thinking in the world. We should just allow ourselves to be ourselves. If people think you're weird and/or disagreeable, so what?

Unexpected Sequels to Novels

I keep starting to read novels only to find out that the story is uncompleted at the end and continued in a sequel (or sequels).  Often that sequel is not even published yet!  This is extremely irritating and I find it unacceptable that this information is not readily available on Amazon where I buy or borrow the book.  Often you can find this out by looking through the customer reviews on Amazon, but that's not ideal since there's a propensity for some people to give spoilers. And by the time the sequel has been published I've read a huge number of other books in between and I can't remember the story!

Electricial Inspections during the Pandemic

I believe that the virus is now more prevalent in the UK at this moment in time -- about 1 in 50 people --  than it has ever been.  Plus we have this new variant that is about 70% more transmissible than the previous form of the virus.

So, imagine my utter astonishment when I learnt from the property management that Government legislation obliges that my property is required to have a routine electrical inspection, and this has to happen before April (apparently this legislation was only put in place a few months ago in June.  See here).  One of the ladies from my property management just rang me up today saying that I must have this inspection (and she stressed must), and that it cannot be delayed for 3 months or more that I suggested.  Why?  Because the Government says so!  A Government that due to it's utterly inept approach to the virus has cost the country billions of pounds and almost 80,000 lives.  See a relevant blog post by me that I published 2 days ago.

As I explained, these compulsory inspections will spread the virus even further, cost lives, overburden the NHS even more than it is already.  Hence, this policy is simply not acceptable, that I was contacting my member of parliament about the issue, and that I would let her know the outcome.  That made no difference, she still insisted that I must consent to an inspection before April.  OK, I confess I ended up shouting and slamming the phone down.

I'm not getting very far with my local MP though.  Here's the email exchange.  I substitue *'s for names and locations.

My initial email reads:

Dear *****,

I live in ***** in rented property.  I have been informed by the letting agency that Governmental legislation requires that my property has a routine electricity inspection by the end of March.  This inspection, I understand, will take several hours.

Due to the new variant of covid 19, which is significantly more transmissible, and the fact the virus is more prevalent now than it has ever been, it seems to me somewhat unwise for any electricity inspections to take place that are scheduled for the near future.

Surely this requirement has been waived in the light of this most recent lockdown?  It seems to me that it certainly ought to have been waived.  Perhaps it’s been overlooked?

Any help in this matter would be much appreciated.

Yours Sincerely

Ian Wardell

Unfortunately, the MP herself didn't respond, but rather some underling.  He replied:

 Dear Mr Wardell,

Thank you for your [email].

The Government has guidance on this, which is available at: [here]

The relevant part is this:

(Note from me: he says relevant, but then pastes in a lot of irrelevant stuff.  I'll just quote the actual relevant part)

"Where a tenant is not self-isolating and persistently refuses to allow access to the property, landlords still have the powers and tools available to gain access to their properties during the period affected by coronavirus. This includes access to the courts to obtain an injunction or, in the case of a local authority landlord, a warrant".

 Yours Sincerely,

****** 

     

So a jobsworth responded and simply repeated the Government legislation, precisely the legislation that I pointed out is an unwise policy at this time.  So, he never addressed the substance of my worry.  I responded:

First of all, I did not email you, I emailed my MP, so why are you responding?

Let me be more blunt. If such electrical inspections go ahead, this will inevitably spread the virus, put hospitals under even more strain, and result in more deaths. Hence, it is simply unacceptable that they go ahead. I repeat, more people will die.

I’m afraid, in light of this, the current legislation is simply not tenable and must be changed. How do I take my complaint further?

Ian Wardell

He replied:

Dear Mr Wardell, 

Further to your response, I work for ***** assisting constituents with their enquiries, however given your comments, **** will contact you directly about this matter in due course.

Yours Sincerely, 

***** 

In "due course"?  Sounds like she'll kick it into the long grass!  I'll update once she responds, or I'll respond anyway in around 4 days or so if she doesn't.

15/1/2020 Edited to add:

About 3 days ago I got a letter with house of commons logo on it. From my local MP asking if is she can share my letter about concerns about electrical inspections with Lord Stephen Greenhalgh, Minister of State for Building Safety and Communities, on my behalf.

Well, it was an email rather than a letter I sent, but I responded yes.

She then sent another letter that I received today confirming it has been forwarded to this person.  She further adds she'll let me know his response when he responds.

 

 

 

 

  

  

Intellectual Humility

I read the following article. 

Intellectual humility: the importance of knowing you might be wrong

Got to admit, certain things I find extremely hard to believe I'm wrong about e.g. my rejection of a completed physics that excludes an active role for consciousness, my dismissal of the possibility of people walking on Mars before 2030, my dismissal of the possibility of level 5 autonomous card by 2025 etc.  But, I do go on about these things all the time on my blog and on Facebook, so people can pull me up should I ever be wrong  🙂

Tree House

 

An awesome tree house!  When I buy my own large house with an expansive back garden I'll build something like this . . no . . I'll pay someone to build it.

The Angry God of Thunder and Lightning

Just read this article:

Ignoring, misusing and abusing science

It says:

The driving ethos of science is control and prediction, where myth and superstition are replaced by scientific laws and principles, and where explanations for almost everything are denied their mystical provenance and acquire the air of science. Not only were explanations turned into things physical and not mystical — like the fact that thunder and lightning is not the doing of an angry god but is simply when cold and warm air meet.

Yeah, and me when I start shouting at people is not the result of an angry Ian, but is simply when neurons interact and fire.

Take note I don't actually believe thunder and lightning are caused by an angry God. But I get sick of reading stuff from brainwashed people and their implicit metaphysical assumptions.

Indeed, if I were a materialist, I could say the meeting of cold and warm air just is anger.  And there is no God that experiences the anger, there's only the anger itself!  (Compare to when materialists say all mental events e.g. anger, love, the experience of colour etc, just are neurons firing.  Moreover, there is no self that undergoes these experiences, there's only the experiences themselves!)