Posts by drmikepj@mastodon.social
(DIR) Post #ASfDZdlWjGo14mmszY by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T07:02:57Z
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Tiny trains on my desk!
(DIR) Post #ASfDish4b0i3yu6v6O by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2023-02-14T07:58:29Z
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@StephZihms thank you! it’s a particularly nice loco - it can run very slowly without juddering or stalling. (Oh, and it’s controllable from my phone or PC…).
(DIR) Post #AZMzNGbuXtE0MzleJk by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2023-09-02T20:44:15Z
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One of the things that really gets my goat about the RAAC scandal (non-UK folks - this is about the fact that schools are having to be closed in the UK because of life-expired concrete ceilings that suddenly collapse) is how much it illustrates our culture of short-termism in the UK. Save money now, cause problems later.RAAC was cheap, but was known to have a 30-year lifetime. So authorities should have planned to replace it, but of course never did.
(DIR) Post #AZMzNIYnIRv6PuKBjk by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2023-09-02T20:46:10Z
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My junior school (in a relatively wealthy part of the country, in the late 1980s) consisted of two solid but impractical Victorian buildings either side of a main road, which were then supplemented with various cheap solutions over the subsequent decades. Two buildings made from breezeblock and asbestos cement came first (one was the school canteen). Later, two buildings made of plywood and tarpaper joined them.
(DIR) Post #AZMzNIoOMSOfCHce36 by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2023-09-02T20:53:37Z
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A steady stream of modest investment, year on year, would allow school leaders and local authorities to repair and replace old buildings as they wear out. Instead we get asset-sweating to the point where catastrophic failures occur. When money is finally available (as with the Building Schools for the Future programme in the early 2000s) the attitude becomes "spend it now while you can", which also isn't helpful as authorities rush to spend cash before it dries up again.
(DIR) Post #AZMzNKICr5q7n2Zy9w by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2023-09-02T20:47:14Z
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When the school was finally replaced with a new building in 1993 (a process that had been under discussion since the mid-1970s but hadn't happened due to lack of funding) the resulting building was built with single-glazed windows to save money even though double glazing was already relatively common and would have saved operating cost.
(DIR) Post #AZMzNM6w5y0rQfJzs0 by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2023-09-02T20:51:06Z
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It's not like school buildings are even particularly expensive to construct, in principle - but generations of politicians (especially Conservative ones) have sought to do so at the lowest possible cost. I can tell you that the poor state of my primary school was the thing that got my interested in politics at age 9... so the present crisis will likely have a similar influence on today's children.
(DIR) Post #AZMzNO8mY4g5iyCV1c by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2023-09-02T21:02:03Z
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A couple of links: the buildings at my primary school were HORSA huts (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HORSA) and the later plywood buildings were similar to the huts made by Pratten https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Pratten_and_Co_Ltd
(DIR) Post #AZMzNQ2TUUoxbzGUTI by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2023-09-02T21:02:26Z
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Both were chosen because of speed of construction and low cost over any kind of durability.
(DIR) Post #AhcuuZlys9lek4il6m by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2024-05-06T19:49:39Z
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@whitequark in Germany there are two cities called Frankfurt. The main one and the other one. (Requires knowledge of German geography and a bit of German vocabulary)
(DIR) Post #AhcuuaPgUXWijDISzg by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2024-05-06T19:52:28Z
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@whitequark The city most English speakers call Frankfurt is called Frankfurt-am-Main (Frankfurt on the [river] Main). There is another Frankfurt near the Polish border called Frankfurt-an-der-Oder (also named for a river, the Oder). [Edit: Oder means “or” in German, but sounds a bit like “other” to English speakers]. So the main Frankfurt is on the Main, and the other Frankfurt is on the Oder.
(DIR) Post #B20LDfuS99qGLDdjt2 by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2026-01-06T08:42:38Z
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I know this is pretty small beer in the light of world events, but I was not expecting to have to write “risk of invasion by the USA” into the risk assessment for my fieldwork in Greenland in June.
(DIR) Post #B2PbfvZucPlkJgq9c8 by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2026-01-18T14:27:07Z
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@Nonilex and he hasn't even been president for a year yet...
(DIR) Post #B2Pcz6bhwAj3yjO9fU by drmikepj@mastodon.social
2026-01-18T14:41:48Z
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@Nonilex Tuesday (20th) is the anniversary