There is of course the sand on the beach theory of aliens.
When you go to the beach and are sitting on the sand, say, two feet away from you and two feet down into the sand could be an ant colony. You would never see or know about it despite being close to it.
The aliens could be in the vicinity, cosmic-wise but they never bother to investigate or happen upon the infinitesimally tiny part that is our planet.
There's a lot of sci fi on a similarish theme - Roadside Picnic, William Gibson short whose name I forget, Gateway in reverse: if we do encounter aliens, it won't do us much good, any more than it would a swarm (?) of ants investigating the remains of a human picnic. might get a discarded apple core out of it.
The experience of the Aztec, the Incas, the tribes of Africa, the Natives of North America, the indigenes of Japan, the aborigines of Australia, the locals in Papua New Guinea, even the Neanderthals, all suggest that when a relatively inferior civilisation (in terms of tech, etc) meets an obviously superior civilisation, the result is a catastrophe for the more primitive lifeform
I see no reason why we would be different; I was amazed last night by the number of PB-ers who think humans would just shrug and continue as normal if it was proved we are being visited by super-powerful aliens
If they are that much smarter than us presumably resistance would indeed be useless, in which case shrugging and carrying as normal would be able all we could do.
If they were much smarter than us and wanted to colonise us they would likely have done so by now
Or they’re waiting to see if their candidate makes it to PM?
HG Wells probably had it right when he said we'd go the same way as the Tasmanian aborigines, if there were technologically superior aliens.
Admittedly, our military technology has caught up with Mars' in recent decades.
H G Wells wasn't very good at biology (why should Martians be susceptible to earthly microbes?) We were in competition with the Tasmanians to occupy the same ecological niche; why would a random alien want the same things we want in the same way the Tasmanians wanted Tasmania, and so did we?
But ALL the historical and circumstantial evidence is with H G Wells. Unless you can think of an example where a much superior civilisation met a relatively primitive civilisation and it all went swimmingly
I'm not sure I can think of one. At the very least the inferior species/civilisation gets subjugated, even if it is meant kindly. And the worst examples mean genocide
Again with your exceptionalism.
We would not be "the inferior species". We, earth, would be the midges on Mull while the aliens are the Manchester City football team playing at home to Barcelona.
For the first time, their Deluxe Senate forecast has a 50% chance of Democrat control. And the Polls Only forecast now has a 65% chance of Democrat control.
It'd be good to see its design docs - and I bet the Russians want to see them as well. As a non-expert, it appears to be some form of hollow box structure: in which case most of the strength would be in the side beams of the box, and the thin top deck is mainly there to transfer loads to the side beams. As others have said elsewhere, there are no signs of any post-tensioning cables.
Repair could be anything from just chucking some steel road plates over the top, to impossible in any reasonable timescale. But allegedly the Russians are trying to build a pontoon bridge alongside it, so it might be more towards the latter.
(IANAE.)
Some of whatever munitions hit the bridge appear to have gone bang *inside* the box structure. Which would mean all kinds of extra damage to look for and fix.
Surely the real question is "Why did the Ukrainians not mine all bridges and railways in the build up to the war?"
What if the aliens are really...... hot? And we want to sleep with them?
Yod be very lucky if the pl;umbing even sort of fitted.
Well, you'd think any intelligent alien species would at least have some sort of a hand equivalent that could do a job.
I am trying to remember who it was who wrote SF, where humans contact aliens.
They discover that the aliens are in fact corporations who have become sentient AIs, running on Matrioshka Brains. They want the humans uploaded minds as currency to trade with....
There was a riff with lobsters who have been upgraded to sentient, as well...
Lobsters sounds like Charlie Stross's Accelerando series of short stories.
Was there not a rather good SF film about some knackered alien craft parked above a Jo'burg slum? I can't recall if there was some miscegenation, though.
What if the aliens are really...... hot? And we want to sleep with them?
Yod be very lucky if the pl;umbing even sort of fitted.
Well, you'd think any intelligent alien species would at least have some sort of a hand equivalent that could do a job.
I am trying to remember who it was who wrote SF, where humans contact aliens.
They discover that the aliens are in fact corporations who have become sentient AIs, running on Matrioshka Brains. They want the humans uploaded minds as currency to trade with....
There was a riff with lobsters who have been upgraded to sentient, as well...
Lobsters sounds like Charlie Stross's Accelerando series of short stories.
Was there not a rather good SF film about some knackered alien craft parked above a Jo'burg slum? I can't recall if there was some miscegenation, though.
What if the aliens are really...... hot? And we want to sleep with them?
Yod be very lucky if the pl;umbing even sort of fitted.
Well, you'd think any intelligent alien species would at least have some sort of a hand equivalent that could do a job.
I am trying to remember who it was who wrote SF, where humans contact aliens.
They discover that the aliens are in fact corporations who have become sentient AIs, running on Matrioshka Brains. They want the humans uploaded minds as currency to trade with....
There was a riff with lobsters who have been upgraded to sentient, as well...
Lobsters sounds like Charlie Stross's Accelerando series of short stories.
Was there not a rather good SF film about some knackered alien craft parked above a Jo'burg slum? I can't recall if there was some miscegenation, though.
What if the aliens are really...... hot? And we want to sleep with them?
Yod be very lucky if the pl;umbing even sort of fitted.
Well, you'd think any intelligent alien species would at least have some sort of a hand equivalent that could do a job.
I am trying to remember who it was who wrote SF, where humans contact aliens.
They discover that the aliens are in fact corporations who have become sentient AIs, running on Matrioshka Brains. They want the humans uploaded minds as currency to trade with....
There was a riff with lobsters who have been upgraded to sentient, as well...
Lobsters sounds like Charlie Stross's Accelerando series of short stories.
Was there not a rather good SF film about some knackered alien craft parked above a Jo'burg slum? I can't recall if there was some miscegenation, though.
“Yes, interest rates have to go up and it’s a good thing,” Minford said. “A normal level is more like 5-7 per cent and I don’t think it will be any bad thing if we got back to that level.”
There's also no statement how quickly we get there, if at all ...
That will be decided by Bailey & Co anyway.
Even 5% means borrowing money to reduce taxation makes zero sense because you need 5% of the tax cut the next year just to pay the interest on the money you borrowed.
If the tax cut is announced in autumn 2022, implemented in spring 2023, and the election is in spring 2024 - then paying the interest on the debt is a post-election problem, assuming the financial markets lend you the money in the first place.
I'm not saying it's a good idea, but I can see why it might help to win an election. The voters are hardly going to be enthusiastic about voting for a party promising to reverse tax cuts in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and if Labour don't promise to reverse them, then how are they different anyway?
I think Truss has the politics of this right, just as Johnson did with Brexit. No idea what we do when it all falls apart, but that isn't going to be a problem for Starmer if he loses the next election.
Labour isn't going to campaign on introducing a tax increase - I suspect they will be looking at a wealth tax to reduce working taxes (so income or NI) while replacing council tax and possibly stamp duty.
A wealth tax on houses will be suicide. Poll Tax multiplied by 'Ands 'Orf 'Me 'Ouse.
A wealth tax on other assets won't rase much.
One factor is that there is a desperate need for a council tax rebanding exercise - and if you are doing that - transforming it into something else that is regularly and easily updated makes complete sense.
Good luck selling that to the Head Count.
What you are proposing is that the government changes where it gets its money from.
The Community Charge upset lots of people, because that was what it was doing. Lots of losers, maybe lots of winners. But losers are always louder.
Any such wealth tax would end up as a tax on semi-detached 3 bed houses, while the zillionaire's would simply shuffle the design of their trusts. And it has to hit the 3 bed houses because that is where all the money really is.
The other problem you are hitting is that for most people, who have a house, the price is a silly joke. When they sell, they buy another property. The farcical prices are just international telephone numbers on bits of paper. Crystallise those into percentage annual property taxes......
What if the aliens are really...... hot? And we want to sleep with them?
"Who would have believed that in the year of our Lord 2017 Hot red people would come from Mars To seduce and destructify the simple peoples of earth? Failed pockets of resistance antagonised the alien invaders further Causing the almost extinction of the human race
I remember a time before Before she offered me wine Looking back I should have seen Her bright red crimson skin She was part of an invasion force Also, she had red horns Now I think about it red teeth too I can no longer blame the wine..."
There is of course the sand on the beach theory of aliens.
When you go to the beach and are sitting on the sand, say, two feet away from you and two feet down into the sand could be an ant colony. You would never see or know about it despite being close to it.
The aliens could be in the vicinity, cosmic-wise but they never bother to investigate or happen upon the infinitesimally tiny part that is our planet.
There's a lot of sci fi on a similarish theme - Roadside Picnic, William Gibson short whose name I forget, Gateway in reverse: if we do encounter aliens, it won't do us much good, any more than it would a swarm (?) of ants investigating the remains of a human picnic. might get a discarded apple core out of it.
The experience of the Aztec, the Incas, the tribes of Africa, the Natives of North America, the indigenes of Japan, the aborigines of Australia, the locals in Papua New Guinea, even the Neanderthals, all suggest that when a relatively inferior civilisation (in terms of tech, etc) meets an obviously superior civilisation, the result is a catastrophe for the more primitive lifeform
I see no reason why we would be different; I was amazed last night by the number of PB-ers who think humans would just shrug and continue as normal if it was proved we are being visited by super-powerful aliens
If they are that much smarter than us presumably resistance would indeed be useless, in which case shrugging and carrying as normal would be able all we could do.
If they were much smarter than us and wanted to colonise us they would likely have done so by now
Or they’re waiting to see if their candidate makes it to PM?
HG Wells probably had it right when he said we'd go the same way as the Tasmanian aborigines, if there were technologically superior aliens.
Admittedly, our military technology has caught up with Mars' in recent decades.
H G Wells wasn't very good at biology (why should Martians be susceptible to earthly microbes?) We were in competition with the Tasmanians to occupy the same ecological niche; why would a random alien want the same things we want in the same way the Tasmanians wanted Tasmania, and so did we?
But ALL the historical and circumstantial evidence is with H G Wells. Unless you can think of an example where a much superior civilisation met a relatively primitive civilisation and it all went swimmingly
I'm not sure I can think of one. At the very least the inferior species/civilisation gets subjugated, even if it is meant kindly. And the worst examples mean genocide
Again with your exceptionalism.
We would not be "the inferior species". We, earth, would be the midges on Mull while the aliens are the Manchester City football team playing at home to Barcelona.
We are having this debate because of accumulating evidence that *something* is interacting with us. Indeed, observing us. Apparently
The direct evidence is extremely poor, but the indirect evidence is decent. There is a case to answer
If they are interacting with us, they are interested in us. We are not the midges on Mull
I'm afraid the prognosis is poor: they are Cortez but with light-speed supernukes and we are the silly Aztecs, prepare for total apocalypse in about 39 days
It'd be good to see its design docs - and I bet the Russians want to see them as well. As a non-expert, it appears to be some form of hollow box structure: in which case most of the strength would be in the side beams of the box, and the thin top deck is mainly there to transfer loads to the side beams. As others have said elsewhere, there are no signs of any post-tensioning cables.
Repair could be anything from just chucking some steel road plates over the top, to impossible in any reasonable timescale. But allegedly the Russians are trying to build a pontoon bridge alongside it, so it might be more towards the latter.
(IANAE.)
Some of whatever munitions hit the bridge appear to have gone bang *inside* the box structure. Which would mean all kinds of extra damage to look for and fix.
Surely the real question is "Why did the Ukrainians not mine all bridges and railways in the build up to the war?"
There have been some accusations that the reasons some places in the south fell was that orders to demolish bridges were not carried out. Perhaps a rare case where conspiracy beats cock-up.
“Yes, interest rates have to go up and it’s a good thing,” Minford said. “A normal level is more like 5-7 per cent and I don’t think it will be any bad thing if we got back to that level.”
There's also no statement how quickly we get there, if at all ...
That will be decided by Bailey & Co anyway.
Even 5% means borrowing money to reduce taxation makes zero sense because you need 5% of the tax cut the next year just to pay the interest on the money you borrowed.
If the tax cut is announced in autumn 2022, implemented in spring 2023, and the election is in spring 2024 - then paying the interest on the debt is a post-election problem, assuming the financial markets lend you the money in the first place.
I'm not saying it's a good idea, but I can see why it might help to win an election. The voters are hardly going to be enthusiastic about voting for a party promising to reverse tax cuts in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and if Labour don't promise to reverse them, then how are they different anyway?
I think Truss has the politics of this right, just as Johnson did with Brexit. No idea what we do when it all falls apart, but that isn't going to be a problem for Starmer if he loses the next election.
Labour isn't going to campaign on introducing a tax increase - I suspect they will be looking at a wealth tax to reduce working taxes (so income or NI) while replacing council tax and possibly stamp duty.
A wealth tax on houses will be suicide. Poll Tax multiplied by 'Ands 'Orf 'Me 'Ouse.
A wealth tax on other assets won't rase much.
One factor is that there is a desperate need for a council tax rebanding exercise - and if you are doing that - transforming it into something else that is regularly and easily updated makes complete sense.
Good luck selling that to the Head Count.
What you are proposing is that the government changes where it gets its money from.
The Community Charge upset lots of people, because that was what it was doing. Lots of losers, maybe lots of winners. But losers are always louder.
Any such wealth tax would end up as a tax on semi-detached 3 bed houses, while the zillionaire's would simply shuffle the design of their trusts. And it has to hit the 3 bed houses because that is where all the money really is.
The other problem you are hitting is that for most people, who have a house, the price is a silly joke. When they sell, they buy another property. The farcical prices are just international telephone numbers on bits of paper. Crystallise those into percentage annual property taxes......
Which is why it's a council tax by another name - heck it may be political useful for a levelling up exercise to make it really obvious.
Band A in London is up to £500,000. Up north it's anything below £120,000....
Imagine the quality of life you can have if you move north and your mortgage is half what it is in London...
What if the aliens are really...... hot? And we want to sleep with them?
Yod be very lucky if the pl;umbing even sort of fitted.
Well, you'd think any intelligent alien species would at least have some sort of a hand equivalent that could do a job.
I am trying to remember who it was who wrote SF, where humans contact aliens.
They discover that the aliens are in fact corporations who have become sentient AIs, running on Matrioshka Brains. They want the humans uploaded minds as currency to trade with....
There was a riff with lobsters who have been upgraded to sentient, as well...
Lobsters sounds like Charlie Stross's Accelerando series of short stories.
Was there not a rather good SF film about some knackered alien craft parked above a Jo'burg slum? I can't recall if there was some miscegenation, though.
Their Deluxe Senate forecast has a 50% chance of Democrat control (equal highest - previously only reached on 29 June). And the Polls Only forecast now has a 65% chance of Democrat control (highest ever - was 61% on 29 June).
What if the aliens are really...... hot? And we want to sleep with them?
Yod be very lucky if the pl;umbing even sort of fitted.
Well, you'd think any intelligent alien species would at least have some sort of a hand equivalent that could do a job.
I am trying to remember who it was who wrote SF, where humans contact aliens.
They discover that the aliens are in fact corporations who have become sentient AIs, running on Matrioshka Brains. They want the humans uploaded minds as currency to trade with....
There was a riff with lobsters who have been upgraded to sentient, as well...
Lobsters sounds like Charlie Stross's Accelerando series of short stories.
Was there not a rather good SF film about some knackered alien craft parked above a Jo'burg slum? I can't recall if there was some miscegenation, though.
“Yes, interest rates have to go up and it’s a good thing,” Minford said. “A normal level is more like 5-7 per cent and I don’t think it will be any bad thing if we got back to that level.”
There's also no statement how quickly we get there, if at all ...
That will be decided by Bailey & Co anyway.
Even 5% means borrowing money to reduce taxation makes zero sense because you need 5% of the tax cut the next year just to pay the interest on the money you borrowed.
If the tax cut is announced in autumn 2022, implemented in spring 2023, and the election is in spring 2024 - then paying the interest on the debt is a post-election problem, assuming the financial markets lend you the money in the first place.
I'm not saying it's a good idea, but I can see why it might help to win an election. The voters are hardly going to be enthusiastic about voting for a party promising to reverse tax cuts in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and if Labour don't promise to reverse them, then how are they different anyway?
I think Truss has the politics of this right, just as Johnson did with Brexit. No idea what we do when it all falls apart, but that isn't going to be a problem for Starmer if he loses the next election.
Labour isn't going to campaign on introducing a tax increase - I suspect they will be looking at a wealth tax to reduce working taxes (so income or NI) while replacing council tax and possibly stamp duty.
A wealth tax on houses will be suicide. Poll Tax multiplied by 'Ands 'Orf 'Me 'Ouse.
A wealth tax on other assets won't rase much.
One factor is that there is a desperate need for a council tax rebanding exercise - and if you are doing that - transforming it into something else that is regularly and easily updated makes complete sense.
Good luck selling that to the Head Count.
What you are proposing is that the government changes where it gets its money from.
The Community Charge upset lots of people, because that was what it was doing. Lots of losers, maybe lots of winners. But losers are always louder.
Any such wealth tax would end up as a tax on semi-detached 3 bed houses, while the zillionaire's would simply shuffle the design of their trusts. And it has to hit the 3 bed houses because that is where all the money really is.
The other problem you are hitting is that for most people, who have a house, the price is a silly joke. When they sell, they buy another property. The farcical prices are just international telephone numbers on bits of paper. Crystallise those into percentage annual property taxes......
Which is why it's a council tax by another name - heck it may be political useful for a levelling up exercise to make it really obvious.
Band A in London is up to £500,000. Up north it's anything below £120,000....
Imagine the quality of life you can have if you move north and your mortgage is half what it is in London...
Have you noticed that absolutely no-one in politics is suggesting rebanding/valuation of houses for Council Tax?
Wife's cousin's daughter hosts a couple of refugees from Luhansk on her small farm here in Finland. We met them yesterday. The refuge was set up and organised by local private enterprise charity Facebook groups. This is the first time I have a positive view of fb.
Can you speak Finnish? If so, we have an “exciting” wee task for you! Kiitos!
Why do people keep going on about Finland? Putin up to no good?
Cicero said a story is circulating in Finland about a British cabinet member that’s so scandalous it would bring down the new govt but is subject to superinjunctions. Robert knows too but his dad won’t let him say. He says the story is “exciting”.
the first rule about superinjunctions is we don't talk about...
How on earth do you borrow money at interest rates of 7%
Borrowing money to cut taxes may make sense when interest rates are at 1% (it isn't but hey ho) but it surely makes zero sense if you are borrowing money at 7% + a year...
Would surely solve the problem of an overheated housing market, though.
(It might keep the plates spinning for just long enough to get past a general election, but after that... Oh stepmomma.)
If interest rates are going to 5-6% I will be encouraging twin A to stay at home and save for another year or so because bargains will be coming...
And send twin B straight out into the housing market as a control?
twin B is at uni - the odds of her buying a house in the next few years are zilch.
Twin A is in a position to buy one tomorrow if she wanted to...
NASA recently did an experiment when one of the Kelly twins (they are/were both astronauts) went up into space to the ISS for a year, whilst the other stayed on the ground. They did a battery of comparative tests to see how spaceflight affected them.
Perhaps that's a cheap way for twin B to get some accommodation - tell NASA she's up for the next batch of tests. She'll get free accommodation and food for a year...
“Yes, interest rates have to go up and it’s a good thing,” Minford said. “A normal level is more like 5-7 per cent and I don’t think it will be any bad thing if we got back to that level.”
There's also no statement how quickly we get there, if at all ...
That will be decided by Bailey & Co anyway.
Even 5% means borrowing money to reduce taxation makes zero sense because you need 5% of the tax cut the next year just to pay the interest on the money you borrowed.
If the tax cut is announced in autumn 2022, implemented in spring 2023, and the election is in spring 2024 - then paying the interest on the debt is a post-election problem, assuming the financial markets lend you the money in the first place.
I'm not saying it's a good idea, but I can see why it might help to win an election. The voters are hardly going to be enthusiastic about voting for a party promising to reverse tax cuts in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and if Labour don't promise to reverse them, then how are they different anyway?
I think Truss has the politics of this right, just as Johnson did with Brexit. No idea what we do when it all falls apart, but that isn't going to be a problem for Starmer if he loses the next election.
Labour isn't going to campaign on introducing a tax increase - I suspect they will be looking at a wealth tax to reduce working taxes (so income or NI) while replacing council tax and possibly stamp duty.
A wealth tax on houses will be suicide. Poll Tax multiplied by 'Ands 'Orf 'Me 'Ouse.
A wealth tax on other assets won't rase much.
One factor is that there is a desperate need for a council tax rebanding exercise - and if you are doing that - transforming it into something else that is regularly and easily updated makes complete sense.
Good luck selling that to the Head Count.
What you are proposing is that the government changes where it gets its money from.
The Community Charge upset lots of people, because that was what it was doing. Lots of losers, maybe lots of winners. But losers are always louder.
Any such wealth tax would end up as a tax on semi-detached 3 bed houses, while the zillionaire's would simply shuffle the design of their trusts. And it has to hit the 3 bed houses because that is where all the money really is.
The other problem you are hitting is that for most people, who have a house, the price is a silly joke. When they sell, they buy another property. The farcical prices are just international telephone numbers on bits of paper. Crystallise those into percentage annual property taxes......
Which is why it's a council tax by another name - heck it may be political useful for a levelling up exercise to make it really obvious.
Band A in London is up to £500,000. Up north it's anything below £120,000....
Imagine the quality of life you can have if you move north and your mortgage is half what it is in London...
Have you noticed that absolutely no-one in politics is suggesting rebanding/valuation of houses for Council Tax?
Even the Corbyinites.
Yep because it's completely and utterly impossible due to the vastly different prices in London and elsewhere...
However the current system simply doesn't work, on new property the banding is often no better than a random number generator.
But it does mean the Government has a serious problem - there are no way taxes on work can be increased so if the Government needs more money they need to find a new target...
Ha, if there is an alien civilisation observing us our opinions on the matter are irrelevant. Their technological supremacy would be sufficient to impose whatever relationship they prefer.
Although the good news is that the absence of our annihilation/enslavement suggests they're not space Nazis.
There is of course the sand on the beach theory of aliens.
When you go to the beach and are sitting on the sand, say, two feet away from you and two feet down into the sand could be an ant colony. You would never see or know about it despite being close to it.
The aliens could be in the vicinity, cosmic-wise but they never bother to investigate or happen upon the infinitesimally tiny part that is our planet.
There's a lot of sci fi on a similarish theme - Roadside Picnic, William Gibson short whose name I forget, Gateway in reverse: if we do encounter aliens, it won't do us much good, any more than it would a swarm (?) of ants investigating the remains of a human picnic. might get a discarded apple core out of it.
The experience of the Aztec, the Incas, the tribes of Africa, the Natives of North America, the indigenes of Japan, the aborigines of Australia, the locals in Papua New Guinea, even the Neanderthals, all suggest that when a relatively inferior civilisation (in terms of tech, etc) meets an obviously superior civilisation, the result is a catastrophe for the more primitive lifeform
I see no reason why we would be different; I was amazed last night by the number of PB-ers who think humans would just shrug and continue as normal if it was proved we are being visited by super-powerful aliens
If they are that much smarter than us presumably resistance would indeed be useless, in which case shrugging and carrying as normal would be able all we could do.
If they were much smarter than us and wanted to colonise us they would likely have done so by now
Or they’re waiting to see if their candidate makes it to PM?
HG Wells probably had it right when he said we'd go the same way as the Tasmanian aborigines, if there were technologically superior aliens.
Admittedly, our military technology has caught up with Mars' in recent decades.
H G Wells wasn't very good at biology (why should Martians be susceptible to earthly microbes?) We were in competition with the Tasmanians to occupy the same ecological niche; why would a random alien want the same things we want in the same way the Tasmanians wanted Tasmania, and so did we?
But ALL the historical and circumstantial evidence is with H G Wells. Unless you can think of an example where a much superior civilisation met a relatively primitive civilisation and it all went swimmingly
I'm not sure I can think of one. At the very least the inferior species/civilisation gets subjugated, even if it is meant kindly. And the worst examples mean genocide
Again with your exceptionalism.
We would not be "the inferior species". We, earth, would be the midges on Mull while the aliens are the Manchester City football team playing at home to Barcelona.
We are having this debate because of accumulating evidence that *something* is interacting with us. Indeed, observing us. Apparently
The direct evidence is extremely poor, but the indirect evidence is decent. There is a case to answer
If they are interacting with us, they are interested in us. We are not the midges on Mull
I'm afraid the prognosis is poor: they are Cortez but with light-speed supernukes and we are the silly Aztecs, prepare for total apocalypse in about 39 days
Not that I'm following it but I really don't think that evidence is accumulating.
Or is it like all the sci fi films where the aliens inevitably land in Texas.
Quick Google: it appears that the various events can be readily explained. One (USS Russell) via bokeh and the other (USS Omaha) via Nessie who was evidently on her hols.
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
What if the aliens are really...... hot? And we want to sleep with them?
Yod be very lucky if the pl;umbing even sort of fitted.
Well, you'd think any intelligent alien species would at least have some sort of a hand equivalent that could do a job.
I am trying to remember who it was who wrote SF, where humans contact aliens.
They discover that the aliens are in fact corporations who have become sentient AIs, running on Matrioshka Brains. They want the humans uploaded minds as currency to trade with....
There was a riff with lobsters who have been upgraded to sentient, as well...
Lobsters sounds like Charlie Stross's Accelerando series of short stories.
Was there not a rather good SF film about some knackered alien craft parked above a Jo'burg slum? I can't recall if there was some miscegenation, though.
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
For the aliens, copulating with us would be like bestiality. Zoophilia
But maybe that's why they've come all this way, across a trillion light years? For specialised tastes
OMFG we are being invaded by HORDES OF KINKSTER ALIENS WITH TOSHIBA WANDS THE SIZE OF THE SHARD
You always seem to go for the exceptionalism route. What happens if life is so common, in all its fecund forms, that we're just BORING? We're of no interest. We're worse than Mostly Harmless.
Billions of stars exist within a trillion light years, and possibly tens of billions of planets. Why are we so exceptional that these aliens would want to stop here, instead of that planet on the other side of the Milky Way that had those rather nice nipple-plants?
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
What are they? My guess would be (in order of descending likelihood)
1. Planes (they appear to have wings?)
2. Balloons
3. Birds?!
4. Optical illusions of some kind: lens flaws, light flare, insects on the camera?
However this last one - which initially feels MOST likely - seems unlikely as there are so many images like this doing the rounds from across the world, this week - so it means these have been happening for ages and we've only just noticed? - not sure I buy that)
Option 5, I guess, is hoaxed. Maybe they are all hoaxed. But there are a lot suddenly appearing
The fact the tweeter seems to think Spain is in France is not encouraging for his credibility, I readily confess
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
That seems odd, and distorting. It would mean someone heating/powering a four-bed house was paying the same as someone in a much smaller place.
Edit: or am I being confused by the quoted figure, which is for (I guess) an "average" household.
What if the aliens are really...... hot? And we want to sleep with them?
Yod be very lucky if the pl;umbing even sort of fitted.
Well, you'd think any intelligent alien species would at least have some sort of a hand equivalent that could do a job.
I am trying to remember who it was who wrote SF, where humans contact aliens.
They discover that the aliens are in fact corporations who have become sentient AIs, running on Matrioshka Brains. They want the humans uploaded minds as currency to trade with....
There was a riff with lobsters who have been upgraded to sentient, as well...
Lobsters sounds like Charlie Stross's Accelerando series of short stories.
Was there not a rather good SF film about some knackered alien craft parked above a Jo'burg slum? I can't recall if there was some miscegenation, though.
District six?
Not that one - the sequel after the sequel after the sequel for that one
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
That seems odd, and distorting. It would mean someone heating/powering a four-bed house was paying the same as someone in a much smaller place.
Edit: or am I being confused by the quoted figure, which is for (I guess) an "average" household.
That's not how the price cap works - the price cap is the theoretical price for a theoretical x bedroom house...
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
That seems odd, and distorting. It would mean someone heating/powering a four-bed house was paying the same as someone in a much smaller place.
Edit: or am I being confused by the quoted figure, which is for (I guess) an "average" household.
Yes, you are. The "cap" is on standing charge and unit rate, not on the actual bill amount.
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
That seems odd, and distorting. It would mean someone heating/powering a four-bed house was paying the same as someone in a much smaller place.
Edit: or am I being confused by the quoted figure, which is for (I guess) an "average" household.
That's not how the price cap works - the price cap is the theoretical price for a theoretical x bedroom house...
Thanks, the reporting on this is seems a bit naughty for those not paying close enough attention.
For the aliens, copulating with us would be like bestiality. Zoophilia
But maybe that's why they've come all this way, across a trillion light years? For specialised tastes
OMFG we are being invaded by HORDES OF KINKSTER ALIENS WITH TOSHIBA WANDS THE SIZE OF THE SHARD
You always seem to go for the exceptionalism route. What happens if life is so common, in all its fecund forms, that we're just BORING? We're of no interest. We're worse than Mostly Harmless.
Billions of stars exist within a trillion light years, and possibly tens of billions of planets. Why are we so exceptional that these aliens would want to stop here, instead of that planet on the other side of the Milky Way that had those rather nice nipple-plants?
IMV the Fermi Paradox is just an intellectual falsehood. Live has been on Earth for over three billion years, and we've only been using radio waves for about a century or two. In two or three centuries, we might be on to point-to-point laser links. Or quantum comms. Or something else. So with radio waves, we have the problem not only of the signal reducing to the noise floor, but there might only be a short period when they're commonly used.
Perhaps we'll develop a new technology and we realise space is filled with signals from advanced civilisations.
As to why they're physically not here: perhaps they cannot get here. Or perhaps we're not of interest. Or all the other answers to the paradox.
If life is fecund in the universe, then we might be rather uninteresting.
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
That seems odd, and distorting. It would mean someone heating/powering a four-bed house was paying the same as someone in a much smaller place.
Edit: or am I being confused by the quoted figure, which is for (I guess) an "average" household.
That's not how the price cap works - the price cap is the theoretical price for a theoretical x bedroom house...
Thanks, the reporting on this is seems a bit naughty for those not paying close enough attention.
Indeed so, as seen in the very next comment in the thread:
If the energy price cap is £4000 that leaves a single person over 25 on UC £18.92 to live on. That's for the year btw.
But then, we have a political system and media which insists on pretending the capped graduate tax is a "student loan" so it really shouldn't be surprising.
Their Deluxe Senate forecast has a 50% chance of Democrat control (equal highest - previously only reached on 29 June). And the Polls Only forecast now has a 65% chance of Democrat control (highest ever - was 61% on 29 June).
For the aliens, copulating with us would be like bestiality. Zoophilia
But maybe that's why they've come all this way, across a trillion light years? For specialised tastes
OMFG we are being invaded by HORDES OF KINKSTER ALIENS WITH TOSHIBA WANDS THE SIZE OF THE SHARD
You always seem to go for the exceptionalism route. What happens if life is so common, in all its fecund forms, that we're just BORING? We're of no interest. We're worse than Mostly Harmless.
Billions of stars exist within a trillion light years, and possibly tens of billions of planets. Why are we so exceptional that these aliens would want to stop here, instead of that planet on the other side of the Milky Way that had those rather nice nipple-plants?
For the aliens, copulating with us would be like bestiality. Zoophilia
But maybe that's why they've come all this way, across a trillion light years? For specialised tastes
OMFG we are being invaded by HORDES OF KINKSTER ALIENS WITH TOSHIBA WANDS THE SIZE OF THE SHARD
You always seem to go for the exceptionalism route. What happens if life is so common, in all its fecund forms, that we're just BORING? We're of no interest. We're worse than Mostly Harmless.
Billions of stars exist within a trillion light years, and possibly tens of billions of planets. Why are we so exceptional that these aliens would want to stop here, instead of that planet on the other side of the Milky Way that had those rather nice nipple-plants?
Have you seen how hot women are, aged 20-27?
Can't blame the aliens, personally
You haven't seen the nipple plants on HJdsauifgasyucj-98C-f76. Or the Vulva Cows on Polonium-9jY. And you've never read anything as good as the literature you'll find on SeanT-9yH6. A planet filled with a near-infinite number of writers of trashy novels and travel pieces, all going under different aliases.
If the energy price cap is £4000 that leaves a single person over 25 on UC £18.92 to live on. That's for the year btw.
Meanwhile a man with a GBP750m fortune tells people he can't cut their taxes or slash green subsidies to help them, but the absolutely destitute among them might get a further handout if they ask nicely, cap in hand.
Not a good look for the tories, that. Not a good look at all.
Didn’t she single handedly sort out this grain deal . Why isn’t she at the signing in Istanbul . Surely it’s only because of her “ world leading “ response that this was all possible !
I see the verdict is in on the Sebastian Kalinowski murder case.
The victim was a 15 year old boy and it might not get the attention that the case of a younger child or possibly a girl might get, but it truly is every ounce as horrifying as some of the worst family child abuse cases we've seen and I don't think it should pass by uncommented.
For the aliens, copulating with us would be like bestiality. Zoophilia
But maybe that's why they've come all this way, across a trillion light years? For specialised tastes
OMFG we are being invaded by HORDES OF KINKSTER ALIENS WITH TOSHIBA WANDS THE SIZE OF THE SHARD
You always seem to go for the exceptionalism route. What happens if life is so common, in all its fecund forms, that we're just BORING? We're of no interest. We're worse than Mostly Harmless.
Billions of stars exist within a trillion light years, and possibly tens of billions of planets. Why are we so exceptional that these aliens would want to stop here, instead of that planet on the other side of the Milky Way that had those rather nice nipple-plants?
Have you seen how hot women are, aged 20-27?
Can't blame the aliens, personally
Not as hot as they were on Monday and Tuesday, obviously.
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
Why would it be all of them?
I have just reduced my payments to £65 per month on a 200 sqm house, for example - because the latest estimate of money they want (at roughly the cap) is massively over (like treble) what I am actually using. I may need to cut them further to keep it in balance.
My Energy Co (Octopus - a good one) is *still* suggesting I should be paying nearly £140 per month, and estimate that I am currently using nearly £70 a month, despite actuals of more like £40 for the last several months - at the increased payments. They have full monthly meter readings for the last 9-10 months, and I had to force a £700 return payment from them in January for taking too much.
That is after I rejected the suggestion in April of a number which was 50% higher than the cap at £2700 per year, based on a non-regulated fixed rate tariff.
Plus we are all getting £60 a month back through our energy accounts throughout the coming winter, to mitigate the *current* cap, on top of whatever is coming for the autumn increase.
Hysterical media reporting, and hysterical claims from campaigning organisations, need to be treated with a Shropshire-ful of salt imo.
Points can be made about a full family not being here, which is fair enough. Cloud cuckoo land estimates not taking into account the actual usage data in their possession, and the money which is known to be coming into every energy account in the country this winter, is not acceptable.
For the aliens, copulating with us would be like bestiality. Zoophilia
But maybe that's why they've come all this way, across a trillion light years? For specialised tastes
OMFG we are being invaded by HORDES OF KINKSTER ALIENS WITH TOSHIBA WANDS THE SIZE OF THE SHARD
You always seem to go for the exceptionalism route. What happens if life is so common, in all its fecund forms, that we're just BORING? We're of no interest. We're worse than Mostly Harmless.
Billions of stars exist within a trillion light years, and possibly tens of billions of planets. Why are we so exceptional that these aliens would want to stop here, instead of that planet on the other side of the Milky Way that had those rather nice nipple-plants?
Have you seen how hot women are, aged 20-27?
Can't blame the aliens, personally
Don't you have a daughter? The way you talk about women is so odd.
Ha, if there is an alien civilisation observing us our opinions on the matter are irrelevant. Their technological supremacy would be sufficient to impose whatever relationship they prefer.
Although the good news is that the absence of our annihilation/enslavement suggests they're not space Nazis.
Fattening us up, rather successfully I think after just visiting a Lidl.
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
Why would it be all of them?
I have just reduced my payments to £65 per month on a 200 sqm house, for example - because the latest estimate of money they want (at roughly the cap) is massively over (like double) what I am actually using. I may need to cut them further to keep it in balance.
My Energy Co (Octopus - a good one) is *still* suggesting I should be paying nearly £140 per month, and estimate that I am currently using nearly £70 a month, despite actuals of more like £40 for the last several months. They have full monthly meter readings for the last 9-10 months, and I had to force a £700 return payment from them in January for taking too much.
That is after I rejected the suggestion in April of a number which was 50% higher than the cap at £2700 per year, based on a non-regulated fixed rate tariff.
Plus we are all getting £60 a month back through our energy accounts throughout the coming winter, to mitigate the *current* cap, on top of whatever is coming for the autumn increase.
Hysterical media reporting, and hysterical claims from campaigning organisations, need to be treated with a Shropshire-ful of salt imo.
It's a shitshow.
That actually doesn't look too bad, £140 seems to be about average for summer/winter. You are just spreading the cost over the entire year, rather than paying more in winter.
Ha, if there is an alien civilisation observing us our opinions on the matter are irrelevant. Their technological supremacy would be sufficient to impose whatever relationship they prefer.
Although the good news is that the absence of our annihilation/enslavement suggests they're not space Nazis.
Fattening us up, rather successfully I think after just visiting a Lidl.
IMV the Fermi Paradox is just an intellectual falsehood. Live has been on Earth for over three billion years, and we've only been using radio waves for about a century or two. In two or three centuries, we might be on to point-to-point laser links. Or quantum comms. Or something else. So with radio waves, we have the problem not only of the signal reducing to the noise floor, but there might only be a short period when they're commonly used.
Perhaps we'll develop a new technology and we realise space is filled with signals from advanced civilisations.
As to why they're physically not here: perhaps they cannot get here. Or perhaps we're not of interest. Or all the other answers to the paradox.
If life is fecund in the universe, then we might be rather uninteresting.
Have they got the Fermi Intellectual Falsehood muddled up with Femi Sorry from twitterland?
20C in London today, about half what it was on Tuesday.
20C is not half of 40C. If it were 293K would be half of 313K. I would do it for F as well, but I'm not that interested in working it out, although I do remember 20C is 68F.
It is just unthinkable to me there is yet to parliamentary inquiry in Germany into the past errors on energy policy, the Schröder Kreis, the cause of the errors, the corruption networks, foreign influence, etc. unthinkable in any developed democracy
I am not being facetious, we need Germany to sign a memorandum committing to profound changes in its energy but also economic model. I don’t know anyone who thinks Germany will do it motu proprio
2014: Russia starts its invasion and occupation of Ukraine 2015: Nord Stream 2 signed
Points can be made about a full family not being here, which is fair enough. Cloud cuckoo land estimates not taking into account the actual usage data in their possession, and the money which is known to be coming into every energy account in the country this winter, is not acceptable.
This kind of garbage estimate is why I stick to a setup where they bill me for the energy I use every quarter, rather than guesstimating a monthly figure.
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
Why would it be all of them?
I have just reduced my payments to £65 per month on a 200 sqm house, for example - because the latest estimate of money they want (at roughly the cap) is massively over (like treble) what I am actually using. I may need to cut them further to keep it in balance.
My Energy Co (Octopus - a good one) is *still* suggesting I should be paying nearly £140 per month, and estimate that I am currently using nearly £70 a month, despite actuals of more like £40 for the last several months - at the increased payments. They have full monthly meter readings for the last 9-10 months, and I had to force a £700 return payment from them in January for taking too much.
That is after I rejected the suggestion in April of a number which was 50% higher than the cap at £2700 per year, based on a non-regulated fixed rate tariff.
Plus we are all getting £60 a month back through our energy accounts throughout the coming winter, to mitigate the *current* cap, on top of whatever is coming for the autumn increase.
Hysterical media reporting, and hysterical claims from campaigning organisations, need to be treated with a Shropshire-ful of salt imo.
Points can be made about a full family not being here, which is fair enough. Cloud cuckoo land estimates not taking into account the actual usage data in their possession, and the money which is known to be coming into every energy account in the country this winter, is not acceptable.
It's a shitshow.
The aim of the energy companies seems to be to keep your account in credit all year round. So you build up a surplus over the summer, and then spend that over the winter, but never going into deficit.
I've had to adjust the direct debit with my supplier several times to keep it to an aim of net zero in the account on average over the year. They must be borrowing a lot of interest-free cash from a lot of customers.
20C in London today, about half what it was on Tuesday.
20C is not half of 40C. If it were 293K would be half of 313K. I would do it for F as well, but I'm not that interested in working it out, although I do remember 20C is 68F.
Sorry about being a pedant.
It's halfway between the temperature on Tuesday and the freezing point of water.
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
Why would it be all of them?
I have just reduced my payments to £65 per month on a 200 sqm house, for example - because the latest estimate of money they want (at roughly the cap) is massively over (like treble) what I am actually using. I may need to cut them further to keep it in balance.
My Energy Co (Octopus - a good one) is *still* suggesting I should be paying nearly £140 per month, and estimate that I am currently using nearly £70 a month, despite actuals of more like £40 for the last several months - at the increased payments. They have full monthly meter readings for the last 9-10 months, and I had to force a £700 return payment from them in January for taking too much.
That is after I rejected the suggestion in April of a number which was 50% higher than the cap at £2700 per year, based on a non-regulated fixed rate tariff.
Plus we are all getting £60 a month back through our energy accounts throughout the coming winter, to mitigate the *current* cap, on top of whatever is coming for the autumn increase.
Hysterical media reporting, and hysterical claims from campaigning organisations, need to be treated with a Shropshire-ful of salt imo.
Points can be made about a full family not being here, which is fair enough. Cloud cuckoo land estimates not taking into account the actual usage data in their possession, and the money which is known to be coming into every energy account in the country this winter, is not acceptable.
It's a shitshow.
The aim of the energy companies seems to be to keep your account in credit all year round. So you build up a surplus over the summer, and then spend that over the winter, but never going into deficit.
I've had to adjust the direct debit with my supplier several times to keep it to an aim of net zero in the account on average over the year. They must be borrowing a lot of interest-free cash from a lot of customers.
Ofgem rules. My understanding is that they shouldn't be knowingly letting people run up a deficit, so they aim on fixed DD tariffs to get to a zero balance in spring.
Among the many controversies of the leadership campaign, one still seems to be unresolved: how do you pronounce Kemi’s surname? Is it either an anglicised ‘Bay-de-nok’ or a more authentic, guttural Scottish ‘Baa-de-noch’. My family have always preferred the anglicised version – but as good Unionists, we allow each to their own. Not a bad mantra for many things in life.
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
Why would it be all of them?
I have just reduced my payments to £65 per month on a 200 sqm house, for example - because the latest estimate of money they want (at roughly the cap) is massively over (like double) what I am actually using. I may need to cut them further to keep it in balance.
My Energy Co (Octopus - a good one) is *still* suggesting I should be paying nearly £140 per month, and estimate that I am currently using nearly £70 a month, despite actuals of more like £40 for the last several months. They have full monthly meter readings for the last 9-10 months, and I had to force a £700 return payment from them in January for taking too much.
That is after I rejected the suggestion in April of a number which was 50% higher than the cap at £2700 per year, based on a non-regulated fixed rate tariff.
Plus we are all getting £60 a month back through our energy accounts throughout the coming winter, to mitigate the *current* cap, on top of whatever is coming for the autumn increase.
Hysterical media reporting, and hysterical claims from campaigning organisations, need to be treated with a Shropshire-ful of salt imo.
It's a shitshow.
That actually doesn't look too bad, £140 seems to be about average for summer/winter. You are just spreading the cost over the entire year, rather than paying more in winter.
You've missed it. They are using assumptions they know to be false.
It states that in April Many and June I have used £67*3 = £200 worth, which is what they have based their calculations. Whilst the actual meter readings from the actual meter, which are in their possession and should be the basis of their estimate, show the actual amount used is around £140.
That's just bad modelling, and use of false data when they have the real data in their possession. Plus the history of heavily overestimating my electricity use.
Plus there is £400 coming in from Rishi later in the year (=35 a month over the year), which should also be taken into account. And is not.
Their model should be showing a suggested payment of something like £80 per month, not £140, which is why I ignore it.
It is just unthinkable to me there is yet to parliamentary inquiry in Germany into the past errors on energy policy, the Schröder Kreis, the cause of the errors, the corruption networks, foreign influence, etc. unthinkable in any developed democracy
I am not being facetious, we need Germany to sign a memorandum committing to profound changes in its energy but also economic model. I don’t know anyone who thinks Germany will do it motu proprio
2014: Russia starts its invasion and occupation of Ukraine 2015: Nord Stream 2 signed
It is just unthinkable to me there is yet to parliamentary inquiry in Germany into the past errors on energy policy, the Schröder Kreis, the cause of the errors, the corruption networks, foreign influence, etc. unthinkable in any developed democracy
I am not being facetious, we need Germany to sign a memorandum committing to profound changes in its energy but also economic model. I don’t know anyone who thinks Germany will do it motu proprio
2014: Russia starts its invasion and occupation of Ukraine 2015: Nord Stream 2 signed
2006: Putin deploys radiological weapons to commit extrajudicial murder in London 2007: Nordstream 1 signs letter of intent for construction.
Incredibly short-sighted.
UK not much better, of course. Londongrad was just too much fun, and even after the Crimean annexation energy security was just far too boring to worry about.
All that time someone in his team spent thinking this up and putting it together. When they could have been bolstering his national security credentials. Bringing Wallace publicly on board, making a big announcement about defence. Giving a keynote speech on energy security.
It is just unthinkable to me there is yet to parliamentary inquiry in Germany into the past errors on energy policy, the Schröder Kreis, the cause of the errors, the corruption networks, foreign influence, etc. unthinkable in any developed democracy
I am not being facetious, we need Germany to sign a memorandum committing to profound changes in its energy but also economic model. I don’t know anyone who thinks Germany will do it motu proprio
2014: Russia starts its invasion and occupation of Ukraine 2015: Nord Stream 2 signed
2006: Putin deploys radiological weapons to commit extrajudicial murder in London 2007: Nordstream 1 signs letter of intent for construction.
Incredibly short-sighted.
UK not much better, of course. Londongrad was just too much fun, and even after the Crimean annexation energy security was just far too boring to worry about.
For Cameron and Osborne international affairs were little more than a game of shifting govt debt off balance sheet.
All that time someone in his team spent thinking this up and putting it together. When they could have been bolstering his national security credentials. Bringing Wallace publicly on board, making a big announcement about defence. Giving a keynote speech on energy security.
Won't the Twix be to help London journos cope with the journey to Richmond or Birmingham so they report in person from further away than Guildford?
"“The energy price cap could go above £4,000, if you can get gas at all. I don’t think the Government yet realises this,” said a member of an industrial group that has presented an emergency plan to ministers."
Are there statistics on how many people/households hit the cap?
Basically all of them, I thought ?
Why would it be all of them?
Because the cap is not a cap on the absolute amount anyone pays, it's a cap on the rate that can be charged per unit consumed and on the standing charge.
There is of course the sand on the beach theory of aliens.
When you go to the beach and are sitting on the sand, say, two feet away from you and two feet down into the sand could be an ant colony. You would never see or know about it despite being close to it.
The aliens could be in the vicinity, cosmic-wise but they never bother to investigate or happen upon the infinitesimally tiny part that is our planet.
There's a lot of sci fi on a similarish theme - Roadside Picnic, William Gibson short whose name I forget, Gateway in reverse: if we do encounter aliens, it won't do us much good, any more than it would a swarm (?) of ants investigating the remains of a human picnic. might get a discarded apple core out of it.
The experience of the Aztec, the Incas, the tribes of Africa, the Natives of North America, the indigenes of Japan, the aborigines of Australia, the locals in Papua New Guinea, even the Neanderthals, all suggest that when a relatively inferior civilisation (in terms of tech, etc) meets an obviously superior civilisation, the result is a catastrophe for the more primitive lifeform
I see no reason why we would be different; I was amazed last night by the number of PB-ers who think humans would just shrug and continue as normal if it was proved we are being visited by super-powerful aliens
Yes but we have nuclear weapons unlike the aborigines, Indians Aztecs etc.
Aliens would have to be super powerful to neutralise a nuclear weapon if our weapon of last resort if they attacked us or tried to colonise us
I preferred (actually liked) your other post where you said that if they existed and wanted to colonise us they would have done so by now. That is of course assuming that they didn't just arrive in the last few minutes and were having a quick nap before getting on with it.
I suspect that any aliens that has the technology to get here will not be too bothered by a pitiful nuclear weapon.
Depends, we have already been to the Moon and sent probes beyond that.
Just because hypothetical aliens managed to travel here does not mean they have weapons more powerful than nuclear weapons
I think if you are able to exceed the speed of light which should be impossible or bypass it in some way and considering the impact that any of that has on mass and matter the probability is that fission or fusion is the equivalent to them as the wheel is to us. So yes I doubt they will be phased by any nuclear weapons.
Comments
We would not be "the inferior species". We, earth, would be the midges on Mull while the aliens are the Manchester City football team playing at home to Barcelona.
It was superb.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_9
What you are proposing is that the government changes where it gets its money from.
The Community Charge upset lots of people, because that was what it was doing. Lots of losers, maybe lots of winners. But losers are always louder.
Any such wealth tax would end up as a tax on semi-detached 3 bed houses, while the zillionaire's would simply shuffle the design of their trusts. And it has to hit the 3 bed houses because that is where all the money really is.
The other problem you are hitting is that for most people, who have a house, the price is a silly joke. When they sell, they buy another property. The farcical prices are just international telephone numbers on bits of paper. Crystallise those into percentage annual property taxes......
Hot red people would come from Mars
To seduce and destructify the simple peoples of earth?
Failed pockets of resistance antagonised the alien invaders further
Causing the almost extinction of the human race
I remember a time before
Before she offered me wine
Looking back I should have seen
Her bright red crimson skin
She was part of an invasion force
Also, she had red horns
Now I think about it red teeth too
I can no longer blame the wine..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIXO2aXhwxE
The direct evidence is extremely poor, but the indirect evidence is decent. There is a case to answer
If they are interacting with us, they are interested in us. We are not the midges on Mull
I'm afraid the prognosis is poor: they are Cortez but with light-speed supernukes and we are the silly Aztecs, prepare for total apocalypse in about 39 days
Band A in London is up to £500,000. Up north it's anything below £120,000....
Imagine the quality of life you can have if you move north and your mortgage is half what it is in London...
The Prawns, eh? When dealing with aliens, try to be polite, but firm. And always remember that a smile is cheaper than a bullet.
The composite PMIs were even worse for the US that for the Eurozone today, signalling an economy not just slowing but grinding to a halt.
How much more can the Fed hike now? Hmmn.
Even the Corbyinites.
Perhaps that's a cheap way for twin B to get some accommodation - tell NASA she's up for the next batch of tests. She'll get free accommodation and food for a year...
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tests-on-astronaut-and-twin-brother-highlight-spaceflights-human-impact/
However the current system simply doesn't work, on new property the banding is often no better than a random number generator.
But it does mean the Government has a serious problem - there are no way taxes on work can be increased so if the Government needs more money they need to find a new target...
Although the good news is that the absence of our annihilation/enslavement suggests they're not space Nazis.
Seems Rough storage gas facility could be reopened but there is an argument over funding. AEP suspects Treasury is blocking it.
Madness.
And the people who took the 2018 decision to close it should be brought to book imho.
Or is it like all the sci fi films where the aliens inevitably land in Texas.
Quick Google: it appears that the various events can be readily explained. One (USS Russell) via bokeh and the other (USS Omaha) via Nessie who was evidently on her hols.
https://twitter.com/PadraigBelton/status/1550126324911460354
Billions of stars exist within a trillion light years, and possibly tens of billions of planets. Why are we so exceptional that these aliens would want to stop here, instead of that planet on the other side of the Milky Way that had those rather nice nipple-plants?
Twitter is now absolutely full of sightings like this
https://twitter.com/528vibes/status/1550477045636931585?s=20&t=ylhcc5LuKwQKUA_-HwMrGQ
What are they? My guess would be (in order of descending likelihood)
1. Planes (they appear to have wings?)
2. Balloons
3. Birds?!
4. Optical illusions of some kind: lens flaws, light flare, insects on the camera?
However this last one - which initially feels MOST likely - seems unlikely as there are so many images like this doing the rounds from across the world, this week - so it means these have been happening for ages and we've only just noticed? - not sure I buy that)
Option 5, I guess, is hoaxed. Maybe they are all hoaxed. But there are a lot suddenly appearing
The fact the tweeter seems to think Spain is in France is not encouraging for his credibility, I readily confess
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox
Edit: or am I being confused by the quoted figure, which is for (I guess) an "average" household.
It was District 9
That's for the year btw.
All of the Prime Ministers of the UK in the form of a song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QL6aslcDQaQ
https://twitter.com/ashoswai/status/1550105958747197440?s=20&t=ORPfyLmaa61s23nmvhoy5w
Can't blame the aliens, personally
Perhaps we'll develop a new technology and we realise space is filled with signals from advanced civilisations.
As to why they're physically not here: perhaps they cannot get here. Or perhaps we're not of interest. Or all the other answers to the paradox.
If life is fecund in the universe, then we might be rather uninteresting.
https://youtu.be/-RpxHczcT7Q
Not a good look for the tories, that. Not a good look at all.
Didn’t she single handedly sort out this grain deal . Why isn’t she at the signing in Istanbul . Surely it’s only because of her “ world leading “ response that this was all possible !
The victim was a 15 year old boy and it might not get the attention that the case of a younger child or possibly a girl might get, but it truly is every ounce as horrifying as some of the worst family child abuse cases we've seen and I don't think it should pass by uncommented.
I have just reduced my payments to £65 per month on a 200 sqm house, for example - because the latest estimate of money they want (at roughly the cap) is massively over (like treble) what I am actually using. I may need to cut them further to keep it in balance.
My Energy Co (Octopus - a good one) is *still* suggesting I should be paying nearly £140 per month, and estimate that I am currently using nearly £70 a month, despite actuals of more like £40 for the last several months - at the increased payments. They have full monthly meter readings for the last 9-10 months, and I had to force a £700 return payment from them in January for taking too much.
That is after I rejected the suggestion in April of a number which was 50% higher than the cap at £2700 per year, based on a non-regulated fixed rate tariff.
Plus we are all getting £60 a month back through our energy accounts throughout the coming winter, to mitigate the *current* cap, on top of whatever is coming for the autumn increase.
Hysterical media reporting, and hysterical claims from campaigning organisations, need to be treated with a Shropshire-ful of salt imo.
Points can be made about a full family not being here, which is fair enough. Cloud cuckoo land estimates not taking into account the actual usage data in their possession, and the money which is known to be coming into every energy account in the country this winter, is not acceptable.
It's a shitshow.
Very very early deployment of the “stepmom” phenomenon.
Nobody is talking about Sunak anymore, nobody gives a shit. It’s already over for him.
*Are they really tax cuts or are they just not going through with pre-announced tax rises?
I reserve all rights to change my mind about this contest daily.
Sorry about being a pedant.
Though I think that is the Hindu tradition, which has strange ideas about fate and the ability to do anything about it.
Rishi boxed himself. He wanted it all so he could deliver a tax cut in 2024. Greedy Rishi.
It is just unthinkable to me there is yet to parliamentary inquiry in Germany into the past errors on energy policy, the Schröder Kreis, the cause of the errors, the corruption networks, foreign influence, etc. unthinkable in any developed democracy
https://twitter.com/MacaesBruno/status/1547242149519015937
I am not being facetious, we need Germany to sign a memorandum committing to profound changes in its energy but also economic model. I don’t know anyone who thinks Germany will do it motu proprio
2014: Russia starts its invasion and occupation of Ukraine
2015: Nord Stream 2 signed
https://twitter.com/MacaesBruno/status/1550488530379481092
I've had to adjust the direct debit with my supplier several times to keep it to an aim of net zero in the account on average over the year. They must be borrowing a lot of interest-free cash from a lot of customers.
Among the many controversies of the leadership campaign, one still seems to be unresolved: how do you pronounce Kemi’s surname? Is it either an anglicised ‘Bay-de-nok’ or a more authentic, guttural Scottish ‘Baa-de-noch’. My family have always preferred the anglicised version – but as good Unionists, we allow each to their own. Not a bad mantra for many things in life.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/my-life-as-a-political-spouse
It states that in April Many and June I have used £67*3 = £200 worth, which is what they have based their calculations. Whilst the actual meter readings from the actual meter, which are in their possession and should be the basis of their estimate, show the actual amount used is around £140.
That's just bad modelling, and use of false data when they have the real data in their possession. Plus the history of heavily overestimating my electricity use.
Plus there is £400 coming in from Rishi later in the year (=35 a month over the year), which should also be taken into account. And is not.
Their model should be showing a suggested payment of something like £80 per month, not £140, which is why I ignore it.
Betfair next prime minister
1.44 Liz Truss 69%
3.3 Rishi Sunak 30%
Next Conservative leader
1.43 Liz Truss 70%
3.3 Rishi Sunak 30%
This forgot:
2006: Putin deploys radiological weapons to commit extrajudicial murder in London
2007: Nordstream 1 signs letter of intent for construction.
UK not much better, of course.
Londongrad was just too much fun, and even after the Crimean annexation energy security was just far too boring to worry about.
https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/information-consumers/energy-advice-households/check-if-energy-price-cap-affects-you
Some people are still on fixed tariffs that are below the cap, but over 70% of households are on default variable tariffs that are subject to the cap.
SAD