rcs1000 said: "The US has a great many toll roads. It also has "FastTrak" lanes on many freeways which you can pay to access. Basically, you have the choice between paying $5 for FastTrak and getting home 20 minutes earlier, or just lumping it and saving the money."
There is one just a few blocks east from where I live, and I sometimes walk up to the overpass to observe the traffic. There are five lanes in each direction, two of the five having variable congestion pricing. (With large signs telling drivers the current price.) Charges are assessed with electronic tags and, for those who don't have them, photos of license plates.
When I have watched it, always in non-peak times so far, the fast track lanes are always almost empty, though the cars and the trucks in them do move faster. They can be expensive, more than a dollar a mile.
I haven't decided whether those lanes are a good idea, net -- but then I haven't even looked for studies on the question. The complexity does bother me.
To be fair, it should pretty much always be empty during off peak times!
Now... it is worth noting that highway throughput drops when demand is highest. By having two lanes less crowded and flowing at 60mph, you might well actually increase total throughput of the road, while raising revenue, and allowing people to self select whether they want to pay and get their quicker or not.
$1/mile for 10 miles that saves you 20 minutes is going to be worth it for a substantial minority of people. If it doesn't add significant delays to other road users, then it's win-win: more money raised and people who want get their quicker can do so.
$20 a day, call it $4,000 a year, in extra commuting costs. You may not think that’s a lot of money… Corbyn might call it the Zil Lane.
And you know that in the UK, it would be one of three or four *existing* lanes used for the fast track, rather than any expansion of capacity for the scheme. Remember Clarkson and his tirade against Prescott’s M4 bus lane two decades ago?
The point is that it's OPTIONAL. You can sit in traffic. Or you can pay to avoid it.
So which one these should Starmer fear? I’m genuinely trying to see the challenge, but they are no Cameron, Major or Johnson. Even May has a gravitas neither of these possess.
Probably Liz
In the sense she would leave an economic wasteland, perhaps.
More likely, she will change her views and policies again to suit new circumstances.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
On the economy it’s probably a good thing, but it does mean people don’t really know what they would be getting and a continuation of governmenr by soundbite and u-turn with nothing seen through properly.
"Would you deploy the RN to the Black Sea to protect grain shipments".
Is that not prevented by the exclusion of warships from the Black Sea by Turkey under the Montreux Convention at the current time of tension?
There have been a variety of suggestions floated, diplomatically, about escorting grain shipments. All would require Turkish cooperation in terms of labelling it a humanitarian effort etc.
Sunak is winning just through greater airtime and exposure so far, i would say. Truss seems less combative than I would expect at dealing with all the domination efforts so far.
A draw at present, bit that is good for Truss.
I like the way they went straight from encouraging international investment, to hostility to Chinese investment. Hostility to what is shortly to be the world's biggest economy, and a major overseas investor, without a blush.
BBC looking ridiculous with all this class warfare fashion bollocks. Ask them about energy security this winter and beyond you morons! And blowing the Ukraine question with a nonsense about whether to send the Royal Navy into the Black Sea.
Sunak had to shake things up, but seems to have calmed down now. Truss doing a bit better now, but from the Labour side I really don't think either of them are very scary.
Agreed, however I'd caveat that by saying Truss IS what little old blue rinse ladies who wish Maggie was still here like. As was May, until she kicked them in the teeth over care. She will energise the base, however i dont see her inspiring the electorate at large
Truss keeps talking about her experience growing up DURING A CONSERVATIVE GOVERNMENT
No no, the LEA was Labour. So she joined the LibDems to campaign for improvements, though now lies about actually joining the Tories because it definitely wasn't the Tory government's fault.
In CH4 hit piece they said they were 25k (in todays money) when he went, which is still a hell of a out of money, but it appears his folks sacrificed a lot to stretch themselves to afford it.
He's simply twice as smart as her, no? (Not that that is necessarily a decisive factor with the relevant electorate.)
I don't think that's true. She rose to become economic director of Cable & Wireless and became deputy director of Reform and authored several reports on education reform.
She's not an idiot. The issue is that she's impulsive and a bit off the wall / bonkers.
The point is these attacks, including the ones about trivia, are being made by the campaign teams. Liz Truss was invited to disown the attack on Rishi's clothes bill, and did not do so. She wants her campaign team to throw as much mud as possible while her own hands stay clean. Doubtless the same for Rishi.
Sunak is winning just through greater airtime and exposure so far, i would say. Truss seems less combative than I would expect at dealing with all the domination efforts so far.
A draw at present, bit that is good for Truss.
I like the way they went straight from encouraging international investment, to hostility to Chinese investment. Hostility to what is shortly to be the world's biggest economy, and a major overseas investor, without a blush.
Absolutely. We should be looking to enhance our links. With China
What about purchasing Uyghurs from China? This would play to our traditional skills in the slave trade.
In addition to working for free (reducing the spiralling costs of employment), we could utilise them in medical research, speeding up the development of Biotech Britain.
It would make the Chinese happy and everything. Win, win & win.
In CH4 hit piece they said they were 25k (in todays money) when he went, which is still a hell of a out of money, but it appears his folks sacrificed a lot to stretch themselves to afford it.
Asian parents making sacrifices so their kids have the best education?
The only consistent thing about this thread is how wildly everyone disagrees on how any given candidate is doing at any given moment.
And it's not as though you're even plugging your favourites.
That tells me whatever else is happening it's not being well run or a particularly profitable exercise.
My favourite has been Rishi for 2 years. But he will lose badly. Despite as I type this getting the 2nd round of applause (the *only* applause). And I know that Truss will be the catastrofuck that destroys the Tory party for another political generation.
I think the UK will be seriously buggered if she wins, but she will win. So what fun we are having!!!
Not watching, anything on cost of living or crime (especially violent crime)....or is it just nonsense about costs of nice suits and who went to the better school?
So which one these should Starmer fear? I’m genuinely trying to see the challenge, but they are no Cameron, Major or Johnson. Even May has a gravitas neither of these possess.
Probably Liz
In the sense she would leave an economic wasteland, perhaps.
More likely, she will change her views and policies again to suit new circumstances.
You say that like it's a bad thing.
On the economy it’s probably a good thing, but it does mean people don’t really know what they would be getting and a continuation of governmenr by soundbite and u-turn with nothing seen through properly.
Tory members get a platform that can win the next election, and everyone else doesn't have a vote so they can't have been misled.
Oh and the British government will have all sorts of handy vetos over the merged company.
Rishi has quite possibly played an absolute blinder.
It does rather look like the LEO constellations data provision market will be
1) Starlink 2) OneWeb - being actually operational and everything. Being the alternative to Starlink, in OneWebs chosen markets is probably quite a good business plan. 3) Kuiper - if Jeff can ever get his rockets up.
Kuiper will happen. Even *If* New Glenn never gets to orbit, Kuiper will launch, as Kuiper is not dependent on NG. It's Kuiper and Oneweb's USP...
Also note sex-pest Musk's post that Starlink depends on the unlaunched Starship... (*)
(*) I don't believe that for one minute. he was just sh*tting on the employees he could not sh*g.
It may happen - the problem is persistent non-delivery. It is hard to think that the slow pace at Blue Origin may be matched by the satellites for Kuiper taking ages.
Remember when Surrey Satellites saved Galileo’s bacon? Just…
Starlink V2 is about getting an unassailable lead - even if Bezos is buying all the non Starship launch capacity on the planet, he can’t compete. Can’t solve that problem with money - he’d need throw weight. Which won’t be available for any price. Unless he launches on Starship
As ever, you are a little too pro-Musk and a little too anti- his rivals. If you had not noticed, SS has not launched, let alone reached orbit. They're nearly as late as NG. And Raptor 2 isn't looking that good.
Starlink is in operation now. Thousands of satellites. Hundreds of thousands of actual users etc. approval to operate in many countries. Uplink stations in many countries. More satellites being launched every week. Literally.
OneWeb is now beginning to come into service. Satellites in orbit, ground stations up and running, approval granted by various countries.
Kuiper - no satellites. No ground stations. No users. No approvals.
Currently just OneWeb and Starlink are in the game.
Not sure what you means about Raptor 2 - plenty of videos from the fence at McGregor of multi hundred second runs, thrust vectoring and everything…
There are plenty of videos of BE-4 as well, with the same criteria. And note they are on Raptor *2* because Raptor *1* did not cut the mustard. And they have blown three Raptor 2's in the last few months.
Now, this might mean they're pushing the limits. Or it could be a sign the program is in trouble. But bear in mind NG has seven BE-4 engines on its first stage. Super Heavy has 33 (*). As the N1 shows, even with protection, the failure of one engine can doom the rocket.
SpaceX has a great record in such things. But they are really pushing the limits of the technology, and they may be in for a world of pain. And tech is filled with companies that were leaders who vanished. I doubt that will happen with SpaceX, but don't swallow the Musk Kool-Aid.
(*) According to Wiki; it regularly changes.
The main problem with the N1 was lack of funding - they were trying for all up testing, but lacked the funds to lose the first 1/2 dozen boosters. Some of their stuff was mad even by SpaceX throw-it-at-the-sky standards - explosively opened valves, which couldn’t be reset. So completely untested engines off the production line, first flight was first fire…
The comments from those who’ve worked at SpaceX and were involved with them (as both competitors and helpers) all agree on one thing - it takes years to build an organisation that can launch orbital rockets. And it isn’t something you can create without launching to orbit. Blue Origin is years behind - they haven’t finalised the design of New Glenn to the point of building tooling - they’ve built some test tanks. They really need the experience that some of the small launcher companies have already got - flying rockets. There’s no substitute.
From memory (there's an online book about it written by an US/?Indian? chap), the N1 was meant to have a dozen+ launches before it successfully got to orbit. The political will - and hence financing - ran out.
As I keep on saying, you seem too down on Blue Origin, and far too *up* on Musk's ventures.
I want both to succeed. In fact, it's vital they both do.
Edit: 'Challenge to Apollo' by Asif A. Siddiqi. Available for free online, and a great resource.
If I may, here's a section on what it's like when an Apollo or SuperHeavy-sized rocket goes boom near the pad:
"Only in the trench did I understand the sense of the expression "your heart in your mouth." Something quite improbable was being created all around--the steppe was trembling like a vibration test thundering, rumbling, whistling, gnashing-- mixed together in some terrible, seemingly unending cacophony. The trench proved to be so shallow and unreliable that one wanted to burrow into the sand so as not to hear this nightmare.., the thick wave from the explosion passed over us, sweeping away and leveling everything. Behind it came hot metal raining down from above. Pieces of the rocket were thrown ten kilometers away, and large windows were shattered in structures 40 kilometers away. ,_ 400 kilogram spherical tank landed on the roof o[ the installation and testing wing. seven kilometers from the launch pad.
By some estimates, the strength of the explosion was close to 250 tons of TNT--not a nuclear explosion, but certainly the most powerful explosion ever in the history of rocketry. The booster had lifted off to a height of 200 meters before falling over and exploding on the launch pad itself, about twenty-three seconds after launch. The emergency rescue system fired in the nick of time, at T+ 14.5 seconds, to shoot the descent apparatus of the payload two kilometers from the pad, thus saving it from destruction. Remarkably, no doubt because of the stringent safety precautions, there were no fatalities or injuries, although the physical devastation was phenomenal. When the first teams arrived near the pad in the early-morning hours of July 4, there was only carnage left behind: We arrived at the fueling station and were horrified--the windows and doors were smashed out, the iron entrance gate was askew, the equipment was scattered about with the light o[ dawn and was turned to stone--the steppe was literally strewn withdead animals and birds. Where so many o[ them came [rom and how they appeared in such quantities at the station I still do not understand.'
And they reckon that only a small fraction of the fuel on the rocket went boom.
The little I read of either space programme, but particularly the Soviet one, the more I'm amazed anyone made it up there and back in their death traps.
Very true.
But not just in Russia: Brazil had a really nasty one in 2003, killing 19 people. This is one thing I fear with SpaceX's SH/SS development: failing frequently is fine until it is not.
The trick is not having people close to where you are playing with propellants.
That and flight termination systems make rocketry safe. A kiloton or 2 on the horizon is just a loud bang.
The Brazilian thing was stupid negligence of the most basic sort.
Also see the event where Virgin Galactic's friends killed three engineers in an explosion.
Or the event this year where another 'emergent' rocket company had an event with people nearby, fortunately without casualties. Can't find a link immediately, but they got *lots* of criticism...
I’ll refrain from commenting too much on the Virgin thing. He likes to sue.
The engineers were
1) pumping around multiple tons of a known monopropellant. AKA an explosive. 2) they were unaware of the pressure/temperature issues documented in the literature about said propellant. 3) they had no temperature measurement or control on the propellant tanks 4) they had done no worst case (or any case) study to work out a safe zone. 5) they did their tests with people nearby. For no requirement or reason. 6) it was a blazing hot day in the desert, and they had no idea what that was doing to their test rig.
EDIT - do you mean those idiots who were running a giant blow torch they called a rocket motor, while trying to kill themselves? Complete with hiding behind a small hummock of earth about 6 feet from their “test”?
I’ll stop there…
Indeed. But the fact they were in that position was down to the company. Scaled, I think.
Don't blame them for their actions; blame the company that put them in that position.
At any time anyone could have criticised what they were doing. “We need to clear the test area”. “We need a $10 temperature sensor on the tank”.
No one mandated that test was run that way - just no one enforced any kind of discipline.
What exactly is your point? They were employees of a company, doing tests for the company. If there is *any* chance of a serious life-threatening event occurring, the company needs to ensure that the tests are as safe as possible, given the knowledge.
Do you blame Chernobyl on the engineers in the control room, or on the system that led them to make those mistakes?
No Ch4 asked Sunak and he said no. There is an interview with his parents who said it was a big step up from the fees they paid for his education previously, but they sacrificed a huge amount to stretch to the fees as they wanted to the best for him.
Oh dear Truss thinks Johnson should have stayed in his job .
Plays well with the former loyalists (I say former, as if someone is loyal to Boris now at the expense of a new leader they are now rebels), and those who don't actually agree he should have stayed, but feel guilty about having thought he should go?
Not watching, anything on cost of living or crime (especially violent crime)....or is it just nonsense about costs of nice suits and who went to the better school?
The first section was on cost of living. Truss said she'd offer immediate "help", Sunak didn't.
Truss says she doesn’t think Johnson deserved to be kicked out by colleagues. “He made mistakes but I didn’t think the mistakes he made were sufficient that the Conservative Party should have rejected him”
Not watching, anything on cost of living or crime (especially violent crime)....or is it just nonsense about costs of nice suits and who went to the better school?
The first section was on cost of living. Truss said she'd offer immediate "help", Sunak didn't.
Yes what sort of help, I’m sure if it was a Labour candidate you’d be saying no detail
Sunak had to shake things up, but seems to have calmed down now. Truss doing a bit better now, but from the Labour side I really don't think either of them are very scary.
In CH4 hit piece they said they were 25k (in todays money) when he went, which is still a hell of a out of money, but it appears his folks sacrificed a lot to stretch themselves to afford it.
From the Winchester College Website for 22-23 year:
The fee for Boarding pupils will be £45,936 per annum (£15,312 per term). The fee for Day pupils will be £33,990 per annum (£11,330 per term).
Truss absolutely bang on - this campaign has not been particularly nasty, even by internal party standards - these two (and those already eliminated) just disagree fundamentally on our way forward. Almost all the real arguments have been heavily focused on the issues, not trivia about clothes etc.
In CH4 hit piece they said they were 25k (in todays money) when he went, which is still a hell of a out of money, but it appears his folks sacrificed a lot to stretch themselves to afford it.
From the Winchester College Website for 22-23 year:
The fee for Boarding pupils will be £45,936 per annum (£15,312 per term). The fee for Day pupils will be £33,990 per annum (£11,330 per term).
WHEN HE WENT, it was 25k in todays money adjusted for inflation....I am just quoting CH4. We all know how private school fees have gone totally bonkers over the past 20 years.
If it was now, I doubt Mr and Mrs Sunak could find 2x the money to send him and that has become true of a lot of middle class parents who used to stretch themselves to send their kids to private schools.
And thanks to governments of the last 20 years there's more billionaires than ever, and more poor people, so we've all got a better chance at that than we used to have
Truss says she doesn’t think Johnson deserved to be kicked out by colleagues. “He made mistakes but I didn’t think the mistakes he made were sufficient that the Conservative Party should have rejected him”
Have either of them explained how they are helping vulnerable and ordinary people through the cost of living crisis, or how they are going to rescue the health service from complete collapse, yet?
If not they are a waste of space - not just in this debate, but also as prime ministers.
Comments
A draw at present, bit that is good for Truss.
I like the way they went straight from encouraging international investment, to hostility to Chinese investment. Hostility to what is shortly to be the world's biggest economy, and a major overseas investor, without a blush.
She will energise the base, however i dont see her inspiring the electorate at large
Eek.
She's not an idiot. The issue is that she's impulsive and a bit off the wall / bonkers.
What about purchasing Uyghurs from China? This would play to our traditional skills in the slave trade.
In addition to working for free (reducing the spiralling costs of employment), we could utilise them in medical research, speeding up the development of Biotech Britain.
It would make the Chinese happy and everything. Win, win & win.
Absolutely unheard of.
I think the UK will be seriously buggered if she wins, but she will win. So what fun we are having!!!
(I don't really disagree, btw.)
The answer is more recycling apparently.
The 1980s rang and want their environmental policies back.
Though having said that, mum and dad being a Community Pharmacist and a Doctor is a classic route to security and wealth.
My Uni had a lot of pharmacists, and the NHS / Community choice was portrayed as between interesting and rich.
'Rishi Sunak has tonight proven he is not fit for office
'His aggressive mansplaining and shouty private school behaviour is desperate, unbecoming and is a gift to Labour'
He has to stop these long lists though.
Do you blame Chernobyl on the engineers in the control room, or on the system that led them to make those mistakes?
If she doesn't I'd agree she isn't the brightest.
https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1551670988949127170
The fee for Boarding pupils will be £45,936 per annum (£15,312 per term).
The fee for Day pupils will be £33,990 per annum (£11,330 per term).
If it was now, I doubt Mr and Mrs Sunak could find 2x the money to send him and that has become true of a lot of middle class parents who used to stretch themselves to send their kids to private schools.
If not they are a waste of space - not just in this debate, but also as prime ministers.