Petty Things That Get On Your Nerves...

[scottsdad]

Broadband services offering speeds in "Megabits per second". 

When I was at school I understood memory better. 8 bits made a byte, and then you moved you through the ranges (kilobyte, megabyte, etc). So...is a megabit per second one eighth of a megabyte pre second? Or have they renamed megabytes?

If it is 1/8 of a megabyte then this is like offering salaries in pence rather than pounds. 

[Florentine_Pogen]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

Broadband services offering speeds in "Megabits per second". 

When I was at school I understood memory better. 8 bits made a byte, and then you moved you through the ranges (kilobyte, megabyte, etc). So...is a megabit per second one eighth of a megabyte pre second? Or have they renamed megabytes?

If it is 1/8 of a megabyte then this is like offering salaries in pence rather than pounds. 

I suffer the same mental torture with radians and arc-seconds.

[Bairnardo]

This is petty as f**k, but it did sort of become a talking point during the pandemic.... Not being able to get a seat somewhere because a seating/waiting area is filled with couples who have both attended where only one is needed.

In question today, the tiny wee bit where you wait beside a swimming pool whilst kids do their lessons.

Absolutely no need for both parents to be taking up space.

[SuperSaints1877]

2 hours ago, scottsdad said:

Broadband services offering speeds in "Megabits per second". 

When I was at school I understood memory better. 8 bits made a byte, and then you moved you through the ranges (kilobyte, megabyte, etc). So...is a megabit per second one eighth of a megabyte pre second? Or have they renamed megabytes?

If it is 1/8 of a megabyte then this is like offering salaries in pence rather than pounds. 

Network speed is measured in bits. Always has been and always will be. 

https://www.ncta.com/whats-new/why-do-we-use-bits-measure-internet-speed-but-bytes-measure-data

[The_Kincardine]

My war on the unnecessary 'pre' continues.  Not only have we 'pre heat your oven' but the latest was 'pre ground coffee beans'.

'heat your oven' and 'ground coffee beans' are what we say in English.

I will monitor the entire internet to catch someone saying, "The greatest thing since pre sliced bread".

 

[scottsdad]

1 hour ago, SuperSaints1877 said:

Network speed is measured in bits. Always has been and always will be. 

https://www.ncta.com/whats-new/why-do-we-use-bits-measure-internet-speed-but-bytes-measure-data

Cheers - still bugs me though.

[BFTD]

On 24/05/2022 at 16:25, scottsdad said:

I have to give him credit. We're dealing with an extremely serious case of plagiarism which has involved the two of us on the phone to Turnitin amongst other things to work out technically how something was done. Like me, he is a zealot about cheating and is the only colleague I have that is willing to delve bloody deep info PDF macros to work stuff out (I was the only one before).

He called me yesterday on Teams to discuss this case - from his timeshare. 

I recently overheard a couple of lecturers discussing how this summer's coursework was going to be checked more closely by the SQA, and final results would likely be delayed - not just theirs, but all across Scotland. Something to do with shutting the stable door after a big plagiarism case that involved collusion from college staff? Is this related to the issue you've mentioned a few times?

Your network speeds have always been in bits, by the way, back to the days of your 56Kbps modem. Although if you go back far enough, you'd be connecting to your favourite BBS at 300 baud for text descriptions of scuddy women.

[SuperSaints1877]

1 minute ago, scottsdad said:

Cheers - still bugs me though.

What used to bug me was other peoples inability to use 1024 as a factor of multiplication of bits and bytes when converting to kilo/mega/etc. 

[BFTD]

3 minutes ago, SuperSaints1877 said:

What used to bug me was other peoples inability to use 1024 as a factor of multiplication of bits and bytes when converting to kilo/mega/etc. 

All in favour of switching to hexadecimal time so that I can feel superior to somebody for something, finally.

[scottsdad]

8 minutes ago, BFTD said:

I recently overheard a couple of lecturers discussing how this summer's coursework was going to be checked more closely by the SQA, and final results would likely be delayed - not just theirs, but all across Scotland. Something to do with shutting the stable door after a big plagiarism case that involved collusion from college staff? Is this related to the issue you've mentioned a few times?

Your network speeds have always been in bits, by the way, back to the days of your 56Kbps modem. Although if you go back far enough, you'd be connecting to your favourite BBS at 300 baud for text descriptions of scuddy women.

This is quite a technical issue. One student submitted a PDF that showed high Turnitin similarity. 2 minutes later they submitted a seemingly identical PDF with a far lower Turnitin similarity. First file was 100 kb, the second 125 kb. The text was identical. Trying to work out how this second PDF had a lower score - been on to Turnitin themselves with this one. 

[BFTD]

2 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

This is quite a technical issue. One student submitted a PDF that showed high Turnitin similarity. 2 minutes later they submitted a seemingly identical PDF with a far lower Turnitin similarity. First file was 100 kb, the second 125 kb. The text was identical. Trying to work out how this second PDF had a lower score - been on to Turnitin themselves with this one. 

Somebody's been far too smart for their own good.

Do let us know if you hear anything about what I overheard. I didn't quite have the balls to ask for more details. Apparently somebody quite high profile has been sacked already.

Entirely possible it was some bored instructors trolling me, I suppose. I get the impression they're always on the lookout for some excitement.

[scottsdad]

6 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Somebody's been far too smart for their own good.

Do let us know if you hear anything about what I overheard. I didn't quite have the balls to ask for more details. Apparently somebody quite high profile has been sacked already.

Entirely possible it was some bored instructors trolling me, I suppose. I get the impression they're always on the lookout for some excitement.

Will do, but heard nothing about this so far. 

[DA Baracus]

4 hours ago, scottsdad said:

This is quite a technical issue. One student submitted a PDF that showed high Turnitin similarity. 2 minutes later they submitted a seemingly identical PDF with a far lower Turnitin similarity. First file was 100 kb, the second 125 kb. The text was identical. Trying to work out how this second PDF had a lower score - been on to Turnitin themselves with this one. 

Do they both flag as being similar to the same source(s)? Is the main similarity in the first submission from another paper(s) submitted or from a web source(s)?

Also, have you downloaded the files and checked them? Has the student done something cheeky like copying some text as a picture? 

Edited May 25, 2022 by DA Baracus

[Stephen Malkmus]

The pro tactic from my uni days was adding some white text at the end of the final page to sneakily increase the word count

[Miguel Sanchez]

Europa Conference League final: Roma 1-0 Feyenoord - Nicolo Zaniolo hits winner for Italians - BBC Sport

Quote

 

Roma won their first major European trophy by beating Feyenoord in the inaugural Europa Conference League final in Tirana.

Jose Mourinho's first season in charge of the Italians ended with a trophy after Nicolo Zaniolo chested down Gianluca Mancini's lofted pass before beating goalkeeper Justin Bijlow with a clever flick.

Mourinho, who has won the Champions League, Europa League and the Uefa Cup, is the first manager to win all of Uefa's major European trophies.

 

There are three European trophies awarded by UEFA. the Conference League is the lowest profile of these. If this is a major trophy then all three competitions are for major trophies, and the distinction is meaningless.

[Bully Wee Villa]

I suppose you could win the Super Cup without having won a "major" trophy first, if one of the competition winners withdrew or was banned, for some reason. I don't think anyone would class the Super Cup as a major trophy so it would be technically possible.

[Todd_is_God]

6 hours ago, Bully Wee Villa said:

I suppose you could win the Super Cup without having won a "major" trophy first, if one of the competition winners withdrew or was banned, for some reason. I don't think anyone would class the Super Cup as a major trophy so it would be technically possible.

The intertoto cup also I doubt anyone would class as "major" had anyone previously won only that.

I agree with the OP though that "major" seems rather superfluous.

[mathematics]

On 24/05/2022 at 16:25, scottsdad said:

I have to give him credit. We're dealing with an extremely serious case of plagiarism which has involved the two of us on the phone to Turnitin amongst other things to work out technically how something was done. Like me, he is a zealot about cheating and is the only colleague I have that is willing to delve bloody deep info PDF macros to work stuff out (I was the only one before).

He called me yesterday on Teams to discuss this case - from his timeshare. 

What are you doing with the PDF macros and how?

I’ve a case this week where even the acknowledgements have been plagiarised.

[scottsdad]

8 hours ago, DA Baracus said:

Do they both flag as being similar to the same source(s)? Is the main similarity in the first submission from another paper(s) submitted or from a web source(s)?

Also, have you downloaded the files and checked them? Has the student done something cheeky like copying some text as a picture? 

This is the main issue for me. The main source dropped dramatically from one submission to the next, but the others stayed the same. So the student must have been able to select the text they wanted removed from the report and do something about. 

The old text as a picture ploy is easy to spot, and this wasn't that. None of the usual stuff (extra spaces, white text, white punctuation, etc). And it was literally 2 minutes between submissions so it must be some sort of file manipulation. 

[scottsdad]

38 minutes ago, mathematics said:

What are you doing with the PDF macros and how?

I’ve a case this week where even the acknowledgements have been plagiarised.

This is where the Prof is doing his stuff. He is saving word files as PDFs and testing different Macros to see the impact. Online there is guidance for students on how to use macros to beat Turnitin. He is trying to reproduce what the student did. 

If we work it out I will let you know. 

I have a case last week where a student submitted work where everything was plagiarised, including the original student name on the submission.