NCT results

Darran over at A Langers Blog put up a graph to show the pass and fail rates of cars taking the National Car Test (NCT) in Ireland. The percentages are freely available online but it was only when I saw them in the graph that I realised something smells funny about the NCT.

The goal of the NCT was to remove unsafe cars from the road and as part of this they have introduced more and more things that cars can fail on and pulled more cars into the NCT net, yet the percentages for pass and fail stay the same.

Year	Pass First time	Pass Retest
2010	51.9% (483.466)	90.3% (396,130)
2009	51.5% (444,935)	90.8% (367,404)
2008	51.9% (433,677)	90.8% (349,225)
2007	51.8% (355,708)	90.8% (285,556)

The level of defects in cars seems to stay stunningly consistent? This leads me to wonder, could the NCT be working off a quota system for passes and fails or is the published data just wrong?

This plane is crashing, no its not

Having recently returned from Newfoundland and the numerous work flights over the last year I can well imagine the panic that would have take place when the automated crash warning played on a British Airways flight from London to Hong Kong.

Mistakes do happen so I dont really blame British Airways but I do wonder why planes need an automated "we are about to crash into the sea" warning. Does it happen so often they decided it would be less work to hire a voice actor put them in a recording studio and then copy the warning onto all the planes. If I'm about to die I'd rather have a member of the crew tell me than some recording. Then again if I'm about to die then they are probably about to die as well so the plane is probably on full auto and they are hitting the drinks trolley. I wonder if Ryanair has a recording and does it try to sell you something?

Peoples Photography 2010

I’m almost ready for Peoples Photography 2010. Good thing too considering it’s on this weekend. The last batch of prints arrived back from the printers today and over the weekend I settled on the technique I will use to hang the photos. I decided to go with a hopefully quicker approach, pre-hanging the mounted photos on black “webbing”. Then I can fold up the display the night before and each morning just unfold it, hang it on the railings and secure the bottom tightly. I’ve seen similar work well for other exhibitors on other years so fingers crossed it works for me.

Tonight the mounting process starts and while time consuming is at least achievable with effort. Then I will select the final 20 to display and the backups to keep in the box in case I get bored of what I have on display. Ok, so maybe I’m not as ready as I could have been if I’d started earlier but I’ll get there before Saturday, fingers crossed.