[tomtom]

Superb story

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/26/canadian-teenagers-lego-man-space



Beats the shit out of NikatWorks lego diggers

[Jaspersharpe]

Fantastic! 

[Jaspersharpe]

In other Lego news.....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/26/doll-protesters-problem-russian-police

[slackline]

  Read that earlier, amazed that they haven't just taken a dust-pan & brush to them. 

[lagerstarfish]

I'm amazed that this story hasn't made the national papers

http://www.thestar.co.uk/news/owls_mascot_oz_pitalised_after_accident_1_4176504

[aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB]

I'm amazzed this one did…



http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/01/rod-liddle-disabled-the-sun/


http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/01/james-delingpole-disabled-agrees-with-rod-liddle/

[aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB]

Local news: for local people.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-16739002

[tomtom]

Boldy going where no man has gone before...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-16772477

£700k... lmfao..

[Grubes]

9.9% drop in applicants through UCAS in total boosted by an increase in foreign applicants
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-16787948


Edit - read it wrong says 50% more than other parts of the uk (cheers slacker for pointing it out)

[slackline]

The 50% is England relative to other countries Wales (1.9% reduction), Ireland (4% reduction) & Scotland (1.5%).

The reduction in England (not the UCAS total) is 9.9% hence the "over 50% more reduction than other countries" statement which you've mis-interpreted. 

Nationwide applications via UCAS have decreased by 8.7%.

But these are pretty meaningless point estimates comparing this year to last, to place these in context you'd need to know what the trend has been like in previous years.  If 2010 to 2011 saw an increase of 12% then what you may be seeing is a return to normal levels and last year was a blip with higher numbers of applications.

[tomtom]

IIRC, last year was about 5% over... so its a real term loss of 5%.

From our own figures there is a big disparity amongst subjects. Possibly not surprisingly, some of the 'arts' subjects have had a big drop in applications (20%+) whereas sciences are generally holding their own....

Also, if you assume that the 'big' Universities are not so affected, this means a greater impact on the 'lesser' institutions...

What we've seen and what the UCAS figures show is that prior to Xmas they were only 4-5% down (or the same in some cases) but the traditional late surge just hasnt materialised....

[Jaspersharpe]

It's not going away Rupert......

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/29/data-pool-3-sun-arrests-murdoch

[aLICErOBERTSfANkLUB]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2095549/Right-wingers-intelligent-left-wingers-says-controversial-study--conservative-politics-lead-people-racist.html

Arf!

[Jaspersharpe]

The comments! 

[Oldmanmatt]

I suppose it just reflects the idiots who feel the need to comment...
IMO an intelligent person would file the story away, wonder if things really were that simple,
Ponder the fact that 15000 people out of 6 billion may, in fact, not be representative and carry on trying to work out how people end up with ridiculous extreme views of any colour.
Briefly feel sorry for them.
And try to get on with life as best they can.
 Me?
I'd like to borrow a credo from the Hippocratic.

"First, do no harm."

[slackline]

No link to the original article, but with N = 15,000 even small differences are likely to be 'statistically significant'.

File under bullshit.


And stop reading the fucking Daily Fail! 

[Jaspersharpe]

Stats or not, it's true. 

[slackline]

It may be statistically significant, but is the size of the difference actually meaningful?  Very much doubt it.

Its like saying "This drug has been shown to produce a statistically significant reduction in blood pressure in a study of 20,000 individuals compared to this other drug" yet the reduction is 0.1mmHg which is such a small difference as to be meaningless, but its still statistically significant.

[Jaspersharpe]

 

[slackline]

 

[Jaspersharpe]

  

[slackline]

 

[Jaspersharpe]

For anyone unsure about what the NHS "reforms" actually mean, Ben Goldacre has summed it up nicely in 5 tweets:

http://bengoldacre.posterous.com/what-will-happen-with-the-nhs-bill-in-5-tweet

[duncan]

Right-wingers are stupid, reports the Daily Mail.

[iain]

Right-wingers are stupid, reports the Daily Mail.

I was going to post that, instead here's Charlie Brooker's take on it