Another slightly strange article suggesting Russia is preparing an “electro magnetic pulse explosion” (probably nuclear but not necessarily) to paralyse Ukrainian advances. There was a similar article in the FT earlier this week
“How Russia could use electromagnetic pulse weapon to cripple Ukraine”
It certainly looks like Russia is surrendering Kherson, which is a huge defeat. If Putin accepts this without any attempt at revenge - or is simply unable to respond - his regime must be in danger
Putin remains highly unlikely to use a nuke. Calling it an EMP weapon doesn't change that.
Perhaps; however:
A weapon that nobody can tell if it's been used or not doesn't sound THAT scary.
The FT (££) has a deliciously different take
“A tactical nuclear weapon used to create an explosion would most likely be ineffective against the mobile, dispersed combination of guerrilla and conventional warfare that Ukrainians are deploying to reclaim their territory.
“But the use of a nuclear weapon for electromagnetic warfare is a different matter. The signature of this type of attack would not be a fireball and mushroom cloud but a weird electric blue medusa orb pulsing directly overhead, followed by silence. At that altitude, the sound will not carry.”
Call me Sergeant Major Super-Observant, but I’d definitely notice a huge “weird electric blue Medusa orb pulsing directly over London” followed by total eerie silence and the failure of every electronic device in south east England
They're talking about the nuke for EMP, which would have a hugely detrimental effect but it's still a nuke which we now know Putin isn't going to go for or is unable to convince the military chain of command to use (see the Kherson retreat with no nuclear retaliation). You have posted about a non-nuke EMP which can cover a tiny area of ground and would be useless on the battlefield.
I’m merely noting that this is now two rather strange, indeed quirky articles in two days about EMP use in Ukraine
The FT, then the Times
What does it mean? No idea. Could be western psy-ops, warning Putin we’re watching him
Something is definitely up in Kherson. Russia is abandoning the city with barely a fight. Their biggest prize. Why? This is either imminent defeat - ie they have no choice - or they expect some kind of ceasefire soon. Or maybe all strategic coherence has broken down and no one, not even Putin, is really in charge
This is a direct consequence of being unable to supply them - as are the previous defeats. Which is entirely down to UKR artillery strategy, and battlefield manoeuvre to get those artillery pieces in the right places to maximize effect. (And, of course, NATO supply of those weapons.)
The reason this one is *such* a disaster is the fact that Kerson was seen as a hugely symbolic prize, and so troops were thrown into an impossible position and ordered to stay there.
The EMP stuff is pure clickbait puff (of a kind you don't normally see in the FT, but no-one is immune). Fair play to them, they've got someone to provide an opinion piece with a slightly different take on the topic of the day.
The FT has some very poor articles - one, which dealt with a company I worked for, managed to make a fundamental mistake in each of the three sentences. Which were miscopied from a press release!
Selebian's law of journalism: "Never read mainstream news articles on a topic you know a lot about. It will only vex you."
"Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know."
Ah yes, I'd clearly forgotten the Amnesia effect
Very true though, isn't it? And I'm surely guilty on this.
Yeah - I sometimes even find myself musing on it while I'm reading something, then forget that I've remembered it when I read the next thing. Quite a powerful effect.
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
This is regularly an issue in Ireland where a lot of wind electricity is being lost for lack of storage. Not sure if there is some constraint in their electricity market which is preventing storage being deployed. They only recently started paying residential customers for excess rooftop solar feed into the grid, so it's possible there's a silly rule getting in the way.
Joe Biden: "The Most Underrated Presidency in Recent History" by Julain Zelizer for CNN.
"President Joe Biden has been consistently underestimated. Democrats performed exceptionally well by historical standards on Tuesday and Biden walks away having fared better than any other President in his first midterm since George W. Bush in 2002."
Joe Biden will stand again, unopposed. And he will probably win again in 2024.
Yes, but it’s because the GOP overreached and are self-destructing rather than down to Biden’s political genius?
Genius is putting it a bit strong, but his legislative achievements, considering the slim to non existent Senate majority, are considerable. And the administration has pursued a notably effective foreign policy. How much of that is Biden, and how much his team, is an interesting question.
He has been astute enough to recognise that he had a narrow window of opportunity before these elections and legislation may be much more difficult after them. In fact, it may not be as difficult as he anticipated if the Senate remains level but he was right to move fast.
Indeed - compare and contrast to Obama who had 60 senate seats (!) and a big house majority in his first two years but only managed to pass a half-baked health reform. Would have been a great time to pass voting protections, get Roe v Wade into law, sensible gun control, etc. A shocking waste in hindsight.
Yes, Clinton (H.) might have made a much better president in 2012. Possibly stopped Putin's ambitions with a tougher line in Syria too.
Hillary Clinton was a disastrous Secretary of State, and she'd have been a worse president. Her main contribution was Libya, where they proved to dictators everywhere that there was no point in doing a deal with the US, and the only way to protect yourself was with nuclear weapons.
There's no reason to think adding Syria to the US's list of wars would have helped deter Putin in Ukraine, and she and Obama just continued the worst-of-all-possible-worlds fence-sitting on Ukraine that got us where we are today, where they talked about the possibility of Nato membership enough to scare Putin and make him want to destabilize them, but not enough to give them any actual help defending themselves.
Careful now. It is PB treason to suggest Nato (and/or EU) expansion might have triggered Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Because its nonsense, given expansion has followed not preceded it.
Putin is NATO Salesman of the Millenium. What's left? Ireland, Switzerland....
wRONg DeSantis. It's right there. I am genuinely disappointed in Trump.
Being 'wrong' doesn't highlight a personal deficiency of Ron Desantis. I don't know enough about him to know whether he's sanctimonious and whether this perception puts people off him, but that must be what Trump thinks.
Its a very lame attack. GOP religious voters might find "sanctimonious" (but on their side) to be a positive not a negative.
Re. the meme of "the Russians are leaving Kherson but maybe they're up to something", there is HUGE history in Ukraine for leaving cities but mining them to hell before leaving.
This includes both boobytraps and the use of radiocontrolled triggers.
The Nazis said the rounding up of Jews in Kiev and the massacre of tens of thousands at Babi Yar in late 1941 was in retaliation for such explosions in Kiev in which ~1000 German soldiers died.
Some cities in Ukraine and small towns too changed hands several times during WW2.
If anyone is interested in the Makhnovshchina, the town of Gulyai Pole in Zaporozhye had earlier changed hands a very large number of times during the civil war. Gulyai Pole was Nestor Makhno's birthplace and the centre of the Makhnovist movement to the extent that it had a centre.
So..."be wary when the enemy leaves a town they used to hold" is a big thing in Ukraine - that's my point.
Joe Biden: "The Most Underrated Presidency in Recent History" by Julain Zelizer for CNN.
"President Joe Biden has been consistently underestimated. Democrats performed exceptionally well by historical standards on Tuesday and Biden walks away having fared better than any other President in his first midterm since George W. Bush in 2002."
Joe Biden will stand again, unopposed. And he will probably win again in 2024.
Yes, but it’s because the GOP overreached and are self-destructing rather than down to Biden’s political genius?
Genius is putting it a bit strong, but his legislative achievements, considering the slim to non existent Senate majority, are considerable. And the administration has pursued a notably effective foreign policy. How much of that is Biden, and how much his team, is an interesting question.
He has been astute enough to recognise that he had a narrow window of opportunity before these elections and legislation may be much more difficult after them. In fact, it may not be as difficult as he anticipated if the Senate remains level but he was right to move fast.
Indeed - compare and contrast to Obama who had 60 senate seats (!) and a big house majority in his first two years but only managed to pass a half-baked health reform. Would have been a great time to pass voting protections, get Roe v Wade into law, sensible gun control, etc. A shocking waste in hindsight.
Yes, Clinton (H.) might have made a much better president in 2012. Possibly stopped Putin's ambitions with a tougher line in Syria too.
Hillary Clinton was a disastrous Secretary of State, and she'd have been a worse president. Her main contribution was Libya, where they proved to dictators everywhere that there was no point in doing a deal with the US, and the only way to protect yourself was with nuclear weapons.
There's no reason to think adding Syria to the US's list of wars would have helped deter Putin in Ukraine, and she and Obama just continued the worst-of-all-possible-worlds fence-sitting on Ukraine that got us where we are today, where they talked about the possibility of Nato membership enough to scare Putin and make him want to destabilize them, but not enough to give them any actual help defending themselves.
Careful now. It is PB treason to suggest Nato (and/or EU) expansion might have triggered Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
It's not treason to suggest it, but it is bullshit.
Firstly, it suggest Russia has no agency in its decision: it was purely reactive to 'our' aggression (and it's odd how the same sort of people always make it out to be 'our' fault, not the fascists running Russia). In reality,, Russia had all the agency.
Secondly, there has not been a great deal of 'talk' of Ukraine joining NATO. At least, until February 24th.
Thirdly, it ignores Russia's imperial ambitions, as has been stated by Putin and others often enough in the last year. This tragic war is not a defensive action by Russia; it is part of a desire to rebuild Russia's stronkiness on the world stage.
Fourthly, anyone arguing the above has to say why the countries of eastern Europe do not deserve the right to self-determination. Why should a failed power say what groupings its neighbours (or distant neighbours) are part of, under threat of war? We should be trying to move away from that model of world affairs.
Fifthly, Putin wanted this war. As such, anything we did could be seen as a reason or excuse for him doing it. The only way to have stopped him would have been to show that we would help Ukraine in the manner we have. And sadly, in Syria and elsewhere, we showed that we would do next to nothing.
Do not excuse Russia by trying to put the blame on the west. The blame is totally, solely, on Putin and Russia.
It certainly looks like it will be a bitter and long nomination battle between Trump and De Santis in 2024
Nah, DeSantis will bottle it. Young man, plenty of time etc.
I don't think so. This is his moment. Probably won't get another chance.
His supporters were chanting 2 more years after his victory. They have little doubt that he is going for the White House in 2024. It would be difficult and unwise to back down from that. The GOP needs a saviour to protect itself from Trump and he is now in pole position.
I'd be amazed if he doesn't go for it. The prize is massive and the chance might not come again. Also the notion of letting Trump have it this time and waiting for a later day is crazy because nobody knows what "After Trump" is going to look like. Could be scorched earth and little else.
You don't turn down the chance at the White House.
It certainly looks like it will be a bitter and long nomination battle between Trump and De Santis in 2024
Nah, DeSantis will bottle it. Young man, plenty of time etc.
I don't think so. This is his moment. Probably won't get another chance.
His supporters were chanting 2 more years after his victory. They have little doubt that he is going for the White House in 2024. It would be difficult and unwise to back down from that. The GOP needs a saviour to protect itself from Trump and he is now in pole position.
I'd be amazed if he doesn't go for it. The prize is massive and the chance might not come again. Also the notion of letting Trump have it this time and waiting for a later day is crazy because nobody knows what "After Trump" is going to look like. Could be scorched earth and little else.
You don't turn down the chance at the White House.
Not a chance he doesn't run.
It is quite a pricey thing to do as a hobby though.That might deter him if he rhinks his chances are slim.
interesting that - for all the fuss and mud-slinging at @These_Islands that has resulted from this report - not one person has come close to defending the 25% figure which the SNP-led Scottish Government has been relentlessly using
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
Ah - so medium winds better than very high winds then. Frustrating. No doubt if there are more efficient ways of capturing the wind they will be unearthed - the technology is still relatively young.
Is there any value in backing the House band for 220-229 republican seats on Betfair at 1.4?
How likely that they slip into 218-219 seats? Lower than 33% surely?
I make it that they are currently leading in 11 of the 26 outstanding races, which would get us to a 222-213 outcome (amusingly, a reverse of 2020).
There are at least 5 of those races where the GOP leads but the lead is squeaky-narrow.
It is not inconceivable that we could be looking at something like a 218-217 House in favour of the GOP but I agree the chances are probably pretty low. It requires all the tight races where Democrats are leading to also fall into their column.
There is a crazy-bonkers path to a 218-217 Democratic House, but I think it relies simply too much on absolutely everything going right for them to be a conceivable outcome.
I see Hunt again talking about bearing down on inflation. Fine. But apart from taking tough decisions can we also hear a bit more about smart decisions. Gas prices have been rising again. Are we doing a deal with the US for LNG? What is the policy other than subsidising prices for 6 months. I was a little annoyed walking past a chain restaurant to see they has their front door wide open. Is there any serious conservation effort going on?
wRONg DeSantis. It's right there. I am genuinely disappointed in Trump.
Being 'wrong' doesn't highlight a personal deficiency of Ron Desantis. I don't know enough about him to know whether he's sanctimonious and whether this perception puts people off him, but that must be what Trump thinks.
Its a very lame attack. GOP religious voters might find "sanctimonious" (but on their side) to be a positive not a negative.
No they wouldn't. Sanctimonious doesn't have an ambiguous meaning due to a previous positive etymology like 'pious'. It has always meant being hypocritical and 'holier than thou'.
Not saying it's not a lame attack - don't know enough about the circumstances. It's mildly amusing as a play on words.
Nevada Senate race Republican lead fallen from 15812 with 83.03% reported to 8988 with 90.2% reported.
That seems very close to Dems running out of votes to catch up especially if there are lots of spoilt ballots or whatever other reasons why 90.2% might be slightly understated (number of votes usually ends up being less than the number suggested by the votes reported calculation, right?).
Am I missing something or is 1.07 to 1.08 digital odds for dem win surprisingly low?
There are approx 25k-30k votes left in Washoe In the two previous updates from Washoe Masto split thos ballots 60-35. So taking the low end she gets 6250 votes from Washoe alone.
There are 6-7k votes in Douglas. Let's assume that LAxalt wins that in line with current votes 65/31 that gets him 2380 votes.
So Washoe - Douglas leaves CCM up 3870.
So she would then need to get 6608 from Clark.
On a 60-35 split (which is worse that what MAsto has got from previous Clark releases) that would need only 30,000 votes outstanding in Clark to take it by ~1000 votes. There are more than 30,000 votes outstanding in Clark.
The only thing that saves Laxalt is: More hidden Rurals, there are potentially some in Carson City but CCM actually won the last mail update from there. The Douglas split going way more in Laxalt favour (hugely unlikely). The Clark vote counters having fucked up and there being less ballots outstanding than they said.
I see Hunt again talking about bearing down on inflation. Fine. But apart from taking tough decisions can we also hear a bit more about smart decisions. Gas prices have been rising again. Are we doing a deal with the US for LNG? What is the policy other than subsidising prices for 6 months. I was a little annoyed walking past a chain restaurant to see they has their front door wide open. Is there any serious conservation effort going on?
Has there been any analysis of corporate profits in the UK?
Obviously the chief drivers of inflation have been global food/energy prices, and the labour shortage.
But corporate profiteering has also been fingered in the US, with some justification.
Hunt can talk about inflation, but as you say, what really (apart from questionable fiscal retrenchment) is he actually doing about it?
wRONg DeSantis. It's right there. I am genuinely disappointed in Trump.
Being 'wrong' doesn't highlight a personal deficiency of Ron Desantis. I don't know enough about him to know whether he's sanctimonious and whether this perception puts people off him, but that must be what Trump thinks.
Its a very lame attack. GOP religious voters might find "sanctimonious" (but on their side) to be a positive not a negative.
No they wouldn't. Sanctimonious doesn't have an ambiguous meaning due to a previous positive etymology like 'pious'. It has always meant being hypocritical and 'holier than thou'.
Not saying it's not a lame attack - don't know enough about the circumstances. It's mildly amusing as a play on words.
By the way, I'd like RDS to win the nomination over Trump - he seems not to have the personality issues that Trump undoubtedly has. I also have a bet on him. I'm not defending Trump's attack due to any political leanings, I just speak as I find as usual.
Off topic: Just had to go through the faff of placing an order with Amazon. What a PITA. Must have been offer Prime about 6 times, and trying to find the button to click for free delivery had me baffled for about 5 minutes.
Is there any value in backing the House band for 220-229 republican seats on Betfair at 1.4?
How likely that they slip into 218-219 seats? Lower than 33% surely?
No that's not a good bet.
Looking at 538 there are 20 House seats left to call. The Republicans have 211, the Democrats 204, with 218 needed for a majority.
So you are betting that the Republicans will pick up at least 9 of those 20.
I think the Dems are up in 9 or so of the remainder, the Reps in 8, and 3 are literally 50% v 50%. The margins are very close in all but a handful. The votes counted late tend to include votes trickling in by post, or provisional ballots subject to verification checks, which tend to favour the Democrats, votes cast on polling day tending to favour Republicans. Although that's not always the case, quite a few uncalled seats are in California where it is.
I think it is still in the balance whether the Republicans even get a majority in the House and that they are more likely than not to end up with less than 220.
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
AFAIK it is damage due to overloading the grid at the entry point that makes them switch off, rather than damage to the turbines. As PB will be very tired of me saying, they get paid to switch off, more than they actually get paid for producing power.
Slightly off topic: Kamski - I hope you are able to go to the Seahawks game this Sunday. (As I am sure you know, they don't play in Germany every year.)
Republican strategist Sarah Longwell: "There is a real risk. You can't, analytically, not understand that there is a risk to Ron DeSantis' career and anybody's career who goes toe to toe with this guy. Trump is not out to beat you. He is out to scorched-earth humiliate you and your career. He will say that your dad murdered JFK and call your wife ugly. He is the worst person in politics. If you are younger, like Ron DeSantis, do you just wait it out for four years or do you risk that?"
"A lot of that comes out of whether or not Ron DeSantis is a good enough politician, and genuinely believes he's a good enough politician, to handle that," added Longwell.
The way to handle Trump (certainly if running against him on the right) is probably to descend to his level (sadly).
The guy projects massively. He smears his opponents to neutralise his own less than desirable characteristics. What the GOP candidates in 2016 failed to do was fight fire with fire. Trump has all his fans because they think he’s strong and witty and calls people out on their personal qualities and failings. People running against him need to feel more confident about directly addressing his.
DeSantis could quite convincingly call him 'Loser Donny' or similar, that would send Trump mad - but it may alienate Trump's base which DeSantis would need. I think that 2024 may be the time to lay Republicans, there could be a civil war in that party.
Republican strategist Sarah Longwell: "There is a real risk. You can't, analytically, not understand that there is a risk to Ron DeSantis' career and anybody's career who goes toe to toe with this guy. Trump is not out to beat you. He is out to scorched-earth humiliate you and your career. He will say that your dad murdered JFK and call your wife ugly. He is the worst person in politics. If you are younger, like Ron DeSantis, do you just wait it out for four years or do you risk that?"
"A lot of that comes out of whether or not Ron DeSantis is a good enough politician, and genuinely believes he's a good enough politician, to handle that," added Longwell.
The way to handle Trump (certainly if running against him on the right) is probably to descend to his level (sadly).
The guy projects massively. He smears his opponents to neutralise his own less than desirable characteristics. What the GOP candidates in 2016 failed to do was fight fire with fire. Trump has all his fans because they think he’s strong and witty and calls people out on their personal qualities and failings. People running against him need to feel more confident about directly addressing his.
Surprising to me that "pussygrab" and the palpable misogyny around him hasn't killed him off before now. Although it sort of finally has - because he can't now score enough female votes to be a viable contender for the WH. Women are the firewall. In this they truly are the fairer sex.
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Yes. Depends on the wind turbine and how it's designed.
And what sort of windspeed is that? Above what level of windiness can we stop cheering our electricity production - 20mph? 50mph?
I'm not sure whether, say, a greater degree of gustiness is more problematic than a higher mean wind speed. However, most of the time when a new wind generation forecast has been set it's been when a storm has gone by.
So, although peak winds in small areas might be so strong they have to shut turbines down to protect them, in general the optimally strong winds cover a much larger area.
I'd say to stop cheering the wind when it's strong enough to bring down electricity pylons. Not much use wind turbines producing electricity in the North Sea if the grid has been blown over so it can't be delivered to your house. So a Met Office red wind warning is too much wind, but most of the time an amber warning is okay.
Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ NEW. Britain's Reform Party hits highest ever support in polls of 8% --more than enough to cost Sunak & Cons the next election. Has close to 1 in 8 of Boris Johnson's 2019 voters
Lab 42% (-5) Con 21% (-) LibDem 9% (-1) Green 9% (+2) Reform 8% (+3) SNP 5% (-)
I see Hunt again talking about bearing down on inflation. Fine. But apart from taking tough decisions can we also hear a bit more about smart decisions. Gas prices have been rising again. Are we doing a deal with the US for LNG? What is the policy other than subsidising prices for 6 months. I was a little annoyed walking past a chain restaurant to see they has their front door wide open. Is there any serious conservation effort going on?
Has there been any analysis of corporate profits in the UK?
Obviously the chief drivers of inflation have been global food/energy prices, and the labour shortage.
But corporate profiteering has also been fingered in the US, with some justification.
Hunt can talk about inflation, but as you say, what really (apart from questionable fiscal retrenchment) is he actually doing about it?
Wage growth is reasonable, no?
How would profiteering work. You would expect companies to be getting undercut if there isn't some kind of price competition.
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
AFAIK it is damage due to overloading the grid at the entry point that makes them switch off, rather than damage to the turbines. As PB will be very tired of me saying, they get paid to switch off, more than they actually get paid for producing power.
Off topic: Just had to go through the faff of placing an order with Amazon. What a PITA. Must have been offer Prime about 6 times, and trying to find the button to click for free delivery had me baffled for about 5 minutes.
The Ryanair of online retail.
If you have Prime then it is really easy. Dangerously easy.
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
Yeah, but... so what?
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
I see Hunt again talking about bearing down on inflation. Fine. But apart from taking tough decisions can we also hear a bit more about smart decisions. Gas prices have been rising again. Are we doing a deal with the US for LNG? What is the policy other than subsidising prices for 6 months. I was a little annoyed walking past a chain restaurant to see they has their front door wide open. Is there any serious conservation effort going on?
Has there been any analysis of corporate profits in the UK?
Obviously the chief drivers of inflation have been global food/energy prices, and the labour shortage.
But corporate profiteering has also been fingered in the US, with some justification.
Hunt can talk about inflation, but as you say, what really (apart from questionable fiscal retrenchment) is he actually doing about it?
Perhaps more importantly, what is the plan for growing the economy? To mix a metaphor, there has been a flood of kite flying from the Treasury about non-doms, income tax, capital gains tax, benefit freezes, pensions etc. - all with the sole aim of grabbing more money to 'fill the hole'. The obvious issue being that if the economy takes a nosedive, the hole will expand. If on the other hand, the economy grows, tax revenues increase sharply and the hole shrinks. The main focus therefore must surely be growth, and that's what we're hearing nothing about from Sunak and Hunt's team as they instead search for ever more creative ways of taking more of peoples' money.
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Yes. Depends on the wind turbine and how it's designed.
And what sort of windspeed is that? Above what level of windiness can we stop cheering our electricity production - 20mph? 50mph?
I'm not sure whether, say, a greater degree of gustiness is more problematic than a higher mean wind speed. However, most of the time when a new wind generation forecast has been set it's been when a storm has gone by.
So, although peak winds in small areas might be so strong they have to shut turbines down to protect them, in general the optimally strong winds cover a much larger area.
I'd say to stop cheering the wind when it's strong enough to bring down electricity pylons. Not much use wind turbines producing electricity in the North Sea if the grid has been blown over so it can't be delivered to your house. So a Met Office red wind warning is too much wind, but most of the time an amber warning is okay.
Yes, speed x coverage seems to be the secret. I keep an eye on the model forecasts and when we have a broad area of tight isobars and highish winds all the way from Scotland to the SE, that’s when we get the highest generation.
We’re generating a handy 1.4gw of Solar energy currently too. Not bad for November.
Is there any value in backing the House band for 220-229 republican seats on Betfair at 1.4?
How likely that they slip into 218-219 seats? Lower than 33% surely?
No that's not a good bet.
Looking at 538 there are 20 House seats left to call. The Republicans have 211, the Democrats 204, with 218 needed for a majority.
So you are betting that the Republicans will pick up at least 9 of those 20.
I think the Dems are up in 9 or so of the remainder, the Reps in 8, and 3 are literally 50% v 50%. The margins are very close in all but a handful. The votes counted late tend to include votes trickling in by post, or provisional ballots subject to verification checks, which tend to favour the Democrats, votes cast on polling day tending to favour Republicans. Although that's not always the case, quite a few uncalled seats are in California where it is.
I think it is still in the balance whether the Republicans even get a majority in the House and that they are more likely than not to end up with less than 220.
Interesting, I think we are both seeing things slightly differently in that I think they’ll probably just breach 220 but not much further
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
Yeah, but... so what?
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
In summary: so what?
I may be a bit behind the curve, not being a regular user of Twitter, but certainly in my experience if I see the blue tick, I don’t question that the source is the legitimate person/company/what-have-you.
Surely the utility of the platform is significantly weakened if that system breaks down, because the reliability of the information is questionable. And in turn that will put off those in the media who use it as a reporting tool.
There surely has to be a chance (though still slight) that if they don’t get on top of this, Twitter could be the first big social media casualty since MySpace.
Republican strategist Sarah Longwell: "There is a real risk. You can't, analytically, not understand that there is a risk to Ron DeSantis' career and anybody's career who goes toe to toe with this guy. Trump is not out to beat you. He is out to scorched-earth humiliate you and your career. He will say that your dad murdered JFK and call your wife ugly. He is the worst person in politics. If you are younger, like Ron DeSantis, do you just wait it out for four years or do you risk that?"
"A lot of that comes out of whether or not Ron DeSantis is a good enough politician, and genuinely believes he's a good enough politician, to handle that," added Longwell.
The way to handle Trump (certainly if running against him on the right) is probably to descend to his level (sadly).
The guy projects massively. He smears his opponents to neutralise his own less than desirable characteristics. What the GOP candidates in 2016 failed to do was fight fire with fire. Trump has all his fans because they think he’s strong and witty and calls people out on their personal qualities and failings. People running against him need to feel more confident about directly addressing his.
DeSantis could quite convincingly call him 'Loser Donny' or similar, that would send Trump mad - but it may alienate Trump's base which DeSantis would need. I think that 2024 may be the time to lay Republicans, there could be a civil war in that party.
Yes, he's a bunny boiler. If they think he's going to let them live happily ever after with a new man they're mistaken. Their own fault for letting him into their life in the first place. Should have taken a pass. Or at least dumped him when it became obvious he was unhinged and a bucketload of trouble. Dems at 2.5 in 24 is worth a look imo.
What is very conspicuous is that Putin is nowhere near any reports of the retreat from Kherson. It is all put down to the military.
🧵 Unsurprisingly, Russian state TV news bulletins this afternoon make no mention of the Ukrainian advance in Kherson. But channels are reporting the MOD’s earlier statement that said the military has completed what it called a ‘re-deployment’ of forces (that is, a retreat). 🧵👇 https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/status/1591070077071216640
Almost 10k Clark ballots in need of curing. This is where ground game actually becomes important.
"Curing"?
I think it’s when the voter hasn’t provided the necessary ID/information on their ballot or has filled it out incorrectly. The ballot still stands so long as the voter comes forward and provides the info.
It took the Kings of England, and later Britain, almost 350 years to renounce their claim to the French throne after defeat in the Hundred Years War. How long until the Russians renounce their claim to Kherson?
The Kyiv Independent @KyivIndependent ⚡️ Peskov says 'Kherson remains Russian' as Ukrainian forces enter city.
Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia continues to consider Kherson its territory, despite the withdrawal of its troops from the city, according to Russian state-controlled news agency TASS.
What is very conspicuous is that Putin is nowhere near any reports of the retreat from Kherson. It is all put down to the military.
🧵 Unsurprisingly, Russian state TV news bulletins this afternoon make no mention of the Ukrainian advance in Kherson. But channels are reporting the MOD’s earlier statement that said the military has completed what it called a ‘re-deployment’ of forces (that is, a retreat). 🧵👇 https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/status/1591070077071216640
In British political language I think we call it a u-turn. Russians have made a few u-turns since launching their Kwarteng adventure in February,
Almost 10k Clark ballots in need of curing. This is where ground game actually becomes important.
"Curing"?
I think it’s when the voter hasn’t provided the necessary ID/information on their ballot or has filled it out incorrectly. The ballot still stands so long as the voter comes forward and provides the info.
After the close of polls? Did they design that process deliberately to make people doubt it?
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
Yeah, but... so what?
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
In summary: so what?
It certainly limits what Twitter can be. An entertainment platform, sure blue ticks are not important. Rolling live news, including market sensitive information, then they are key.
Seriously though, this could cause all sorts of fun* fake news - as journalists take tweets at face value and report. They shouldn't, of course, but I'm sure they will, for a time at least.
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
Yeah, but... so what?
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
In summary: so what?
It certainly limits what Twitter can be. An entertainment platform, sure blue ticks are not important. Rolling live news, including market sensitive information, then they are key.
The other thing is that if organisations don’t feel it is a successful way of communicating their message, because people doubt the verification, then at what point does it become more hassle than it’s worth to keep a presence on there.
If the big media houses and corporations quit, Twitter is in trouble.
In 2016, I wondered why Democrats didn't run a series of ads showing Trump victims, contractors he'd cheated, victims of Trump University, et cetera, et cetera. This isn't a novel idea; they used something similar against Romney in 2012, though the ad was, I believe, deceptive.
Or, now, ads showing his followers who have been convicted.
Following Trump can be bad for your wealth, your health, and even your freedom. It shouldn't be hard to explain those facts to voters
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
Yeah, but... so what?
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
In summary: so what?
I may be a bit behind the curve, not being a regular user of Twitter, but certainly in my experience if I see the blue tick, I don’t question that the source is the legitimate person/company/what-have-you.
Surely the utility of the platform is significantly weakened if that system breaks down, because the reliability of the information is questionable. And in turn that will put off those in the media who use it as a reporting tool.
There surely has to be a chance (though still slight) that if they don’t get on top of this, Twitter could be the first big social media casualty since MySpace.
So... the media using it as a reporting tool is what drives revenue? And them deserting the platform will cause it to collapse?
Even if that did eventually happen - and I am very unconvinced it will - I don't see why it matters right now.
Seriously though, this could cause all sorts of fun* fake news - as journalists take tweets at face value and report. They shouldn't, of course, but I'm sure they will, for a time at least.
*not fun
Just a matter of time surely before "Meta" announces the acquisition of Zoom, or something, at 30% more than their current share price.
It sounds like the news of this calamity is spreading and there is a rout happening with troops across the region who don't fancy being the next concentrations to be left in the grinder. Reports of units fleeing all over the shop.
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
AFAIK it is damage due to overloading the grid at the entry point that makes them switch off, rather than damage to the turbines. As PB will be very tired of me saying, they get paid to switch off, more than they actually get paid for producing power.
That may be one aspect of it, but from my limited knowledge, it's more to do with the stresses excess winds put on the blades, gearing and generator. Whilst some turbines have gears (to convert the blades' rotation to an ideal faster speed for the generator), it is fixed-ratio and not variable gearing - i.e. you cannot change from gear 1 to gear 2. This means that when the wind speeds are low, the turbine is very inefficient. It also means that when wind speeds are high, the blades can overspeed and the mechanism can be damaged. For instance, you do not want the blade tip speed reaching the speed of sound, which is surprisingly easy with rotors many tens of metres in diameter. So in high winds, they feather the blades.
Then there are direct-drive turbines with no gearing, which are inefficient as the generator does not work as well, as it wants a fast input shaft rotation speed.
ISTR a Dutch company was attempting a variable gearbox on a turbine a few years back, but there are issues in that they are much more complex, and doing anything more than routine maintenance on a turbine many tens of metres above the ground is difficult.
Almost 10k Clark ballots in need of curing. This is where ground game actually becomes important.
"Curing"?
I think it’s when the voter hasn’t provided the necessary ID/information on their ballot or has filled it out incorrectly. The ballot still stands so long as the voter comes forward and provides the info.
After the close of polls? Did they design that process deliberately to make people doubt it?
Yes, after close of polls.
I do understand the utility of it, in a system much more complicated than ours. If you’re obliged to jump through so many hoops to cast your vote, if something procedurally wrong is done then at least you get a chance to register your vote rather than being disenfranchised. But in an ideal world the system wouldn’t be as complex or as demanding on a voter to the point where such a system were needed.
Seriously though, this could cause all sorts of fun* fake news - as journalists take tweets at face value and report. They shouldn't, of course, but I'm sure they will, for a time at least.
*not fun
Even before recent shenanigans I'd have preferred a tweet like that to also include a link to the press release on their website, as an additional degree of verification.
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
Yeah, but... so what?
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
In summary: so what?
It certainly limits what Twitter can be. An entertainment platform, sure blue ticks are not important. Rolling live news, including market sensitive information, then they are key.
The logical move is to use existing verification methods as in finance - see the alt-banks. Online scans of your passport/ID/credit cards linking to a fixed name. If it's good enough for the finance regulators....
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
Yeah, but... so what?
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
In summary: so what?
It certainly limits what Twitter can be. An entertainment platform, sure blue ticks are not important. Rolling live news, including market sensitive information, then they are key.
The logical move is to use existing verification methods as in finance - see the alt-banks. Online scans of your passport/ID/credit cards linking to a fixed name. If it's good enough for the finance regulators....
I'm sure someone like Musk would be quite above misusing everyones govt ID and bank information......
It took the Kings of England, and later Britain, almost 350 years to renounce their claim to the French throne after defeat in the Hundred Years War. How long until the Russians renounce their claim to Kherson?
The Kyiv Independent @KyivIndependent ⚡️ Peskov says 'Kherson remains Russian' as Ukrainian forces enter city.
Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia continues to consider Kherson its territory, despite the withdrawal of its troops from the city, according to Russian state-controlled news agency TASS.
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
Yeah, but... so what?
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
In summary: so what?
I may be a bit behind the curve, not being a regular user of Twitter, but certainly in my experience if I see the blue tick, I don’t question that the source is the legitimate person/company/what-have-you.
Surely the utility of the platform is significantly weakened if that system breaks down, because the reliability of the information is questionable. And in turn that will put off those in the media who use it as a reporting tool.
There surely has to be a chance (though still slight) that if they don’t get on top of this, Twitter could be the first big social media casualty since MySpace.
So... the media using it as a reporting tool is what drives revenue? And them deserting the platform will cause it to collapse?
Even if that did eventually happen - and I am very unconvinced it will - I don't see why it matters right now.
Certainly one of the big things that drives Twitter is the fact it is a quick direct line to news and developments about people and organisations. That surely drives a significant chunk of its traffic, not the people who use it to have a debate (there are better platforms out there for that).
If traffic collapses, revenue collapses and value collapses.
In 2016, I wondered why Democrats didn't run a series of ads showing Trump victims, contractors he'd cheated, victims of Trump University, et cetera, et cetera. This isn't a novel idea; they used something similar against Romney in 2012, though the ad was, I believe, deceptive.
They were apparently pretty persuasive in focus group testing but they couldn't get them infront of the right eyes and people were sceptical of them because "The news wasn't saying anything about Trump stiffing contractors"
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
Yeah, but... so what?
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
In summary: so what?
It certainly limits what Twitter can be. An entertainment platform, sure blue ticks are not important. Rolling live news, including market sensitive information, then they are key.
The logical move is to use existing verification methods as in finance - see the alt-banks. Online scans of your passport/ID/credit cards linking to a fixed name. If it's good enough for the finance regulators....
I'm sure someone like Musk would be quite above misusing everyones govt ID and bank information......
If you are paying $8 a month, they already have a verified credit card, I presume.
Lock the verified name to the name on the credit card. Change it and you lose the blue tick.
Off-topic: I hope Smarkets win a big chunk of market share from Betfair before the 2024 USPE. As well as delaying paying out my winnings on Biden for ages in 2020 until the last MAGA nut in Viking headwear and waving a Confederacy flag was safely in custody, BF also recently slashed my deposit limit by more than 95% without telling me, won't acknowledge what they did, and won't reinstall it.
Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ NEW. Britain's Reform Party hits highest ever support in polls of 8% --more than enough to cost Sunak & Cons the next election. Has close to 1 in 8 of Boris Johnson's 2019 voters
Lab 42% (-5) Con 21% (-) LibDem 9% (-1) Green 9% (+2) Reform 8% (+3) SNP 5% (-)
Seriously though, this could cause all sorts of fun* fake news - as journalists take tweets at face value and report. They shouldn't, of course, but I'm sure they will, for a time at least.
*not fun
Yeah, these are genuine. The feed was bragging about its new offices last week.
Either that or a lot of media outlets have also been duped 😂
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
AFAIK it is damage due to overloading the grid at the entry point that makes them switch off, rather than damage to the turbines. As PB will be very tired of me saying, they get paid to switch off, more than they actually get paid for producing power.
Tired of you saying that because it's cobblers.
No, it's not cobblers, it's easily verifiable fact.
"Wind farm owners charge more per unit to reduce output than they earn through generating. For wind farms subsidised under the Renewables Obligation (RO) the income foregone when instructed to reduce output is the value of the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC). Typically, wind farms ask to be paid much more than the lost income, and in the early days of wind farm constraint payments, the premiums charged for not generating were very high indeed. For example, in 2011, Crystal Rig 2 charged £991 per MWh to reduce output compared to the value of the ROC at that time of £42 per MWh. Kilbraur, Millennium, Farr, An Suidhe were charging between £200 to £320 per MWh constrained-off in 2011.!
This was regarded as an abuse of market power, and the Government introduced the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition (TCLC) in 2012, which sought to prevent excessive bid prices in the event of a constraint. While there can be no doubt that the TCLC resulted in a reduction in prices, they are still well in excess of the subsidy foregone in 2019
...Assuming the 2019 ROC value will be approximately £55, these wind farms would receive £49 per MWh if generating but ask for and receive £96-£98 per MWh not to generate and thus get a premium of £47–£49 above the subsidy when constrained off. The five wind farms with the lowest constraint prices are older wind farms which receive 1 ROC per MWh. In 2019, they were setting constraint prices of £64-£69 per MWh to reduce output, thus getting a premium of £10-£15 per MWh."
Off-topic: I hope Smarkets win a big chunk of market share from Betfair before the 2024 USPE. As well as delaying paying out my winnings on Biden for ages in 2020 until the last MAGA nut in Viking headwear and waving a Confederacy flag was safely in custody, BF also recently slashed my deposit limit by more than 95% without telling me, won't acknowledge what they did, and won't reinstall it.
Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ NEW. Britain's Reform Party hits highest ever support in polls of 8% --more than enough to cost Sunak & Cons the next election. Has close to 1 in 8 of Boris Johnson's 2019 voters
Lab 42% (-5) Con 21% (-) LibDem 9% (-1) Green 9% (+2) Reform 8% (+3) SNP 5% (-)
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
AFAIK it is damage due to overloading the grid at the entry point that makes them switch off, rather than damage to the turbines. As PB will be very tired of me saying, they get paid to switch off, more than they actually get paid for producing power.
Tired of you saying that because it's cobblers.
No, it's not cobblers, it's easily verifiable fact.
"Wind farm owners charge more per unit to reduce output than they earn through generating. For wind farms subsidised under the Renewables Obligation (RO) the income foregone when instructed to reduce output is the value of the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC). Typically, wind farms ask to be paid much more than the lost income, and in the early days of wind farm constraint payments, the premiums charged for not generating were very high indeed. For example, in 2011, Crystal Rig 2 charged £991 per MWh to reduce output compared to the value of the ROC at that time of £42 per MWh. Kilbraur, Millennium, Farr, An Suidhe were charging between £200 to £320 per MWh constrained-off in 2011.!
This was regarded as an abuse of market power, and the Government introduced the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition (TCLC) in 2012, which sought to prevent excessive bid prices in the event of a constraint. While there can be no doubt that the TCLC resulted in a reduction in prices, they are still well in excess of the subsidy foregone in 2019
...Assuming the 2019 ROC value will be approximately £55, these wind farms would receive £49 per MWh if generating but ask for and receive £96-£98 per MWh not to generate and thus get a premium of £47–£49 above the subsidy when constrained off. The five wind farms with the lowest constraint prices are older wind farms which receive 1 ROC per MWh. In 2019, they were setting constraint prices of £64-£69 per MWh to reduce output, thus getting a premium of £10-£15 per MWh."
O/T I have just felt moved to donate a small payment to Wikipedia; I don't do it very often but 98% don't bother at all apparently.
It is still amazing to me that Wiki remains free and ad-free. I wonder if that will continue indefinitely.
I donate small amounts, regularly. It's reportedly rather profitable, but so long as it continues as it is, that doesn't bother me much.
About five years ago, Jimmy Wales (who founded Wikipedia) arrived at Heathrow Airport.
"Mr Wales, what is the purpose of your visit to the UK?"
"I'm here for a conference, I founded Wikipedia, you know."
Whereupon the junior Border Patrol agent got a little confused, and thought he meant wikileaks, with the consequence that Mr Wales was sent for secondary screening.
It is a reminder that - when entering countries - one should only give the information asked for, and never boast.
Off-topic: I hope Smarkets win a big chunk of market share from Betfair before the 2024 USPE. As well as delaying paying out my winnings on Biden for ages in 2020 until the last MAGA nut in Viking headwear and waving a Confederacy flag was safely in custody, BF also recently slashed my deposit limit by more than 95% without telling me, won't acknowledge what they did, and won't reinstall it.
i'm surprised at that. if you're betting on the exchange it isnt their money at risk from your activities.
ETA. if the deposit limit is because they think you might be betting more than you can afford they ought to be open about it and give you the opportunity to prove you are ok with your level of betting.
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
AFAIK it is damage due to overloading the grid at the entry point that makes them switch off, rather than damage to the turbines. As PB will be very tired of me saying, they get paid to switch off, more than they actually get paid for producing power.
That may be one aspect of it, but from my limited knowledge, it's more to do with the stresses excess winds put on the blades, gearing and generator. Whilst some turbines have gears (to convert the blades' rotation to an ideal faster speed for the generator), it is fixed-ratio and not variable gearing - i.e. you cannot change from gear 1 to gear 2. This means that when the wind speeds are low, the turbine is very inefficient. It also means that when wind speeds are high, the blades can overspeed and the mechanism can be damaged. For instance, you do not want the blade tip speed reaching the speed of sound, which is surprisingly easy with rotors many tens of metres in diameter. So in high winds, they feather the blades.
Then there are direct-drive turbines with no gearing, which are inefficient as the generator does not work as well, as it wants a fast input shaft rotation speed.
ISTR a Dutch company was attempting a variable gearbox on a turbine a few years back, but there are issues in that they are much more complex, and doing anything more than routine maintenance on a turbine many tens of metres above the ground is difficult.
(IANAE, etc, etc)
I thought you were an engineer (by training at least), but just not that kind of engineer.
In 2016, I wondered why Democrats didn't run a series of ads showing Trump victims, contractors he'd cheated, victims of Trump University, et cetera, et cetera. This isn't a novel idea; they used something similar against Romney in 2012, though the ad was, I believe, deceptive.
They were apparently pretty persuasive in focus group testing but they couldn't get them infront of the right eyes and people were sceptical of them because "The news wasn't saying anything about Trump stiffing contractors"
To his hard core support him being a bastard in business is a plus.
A lot of this is anecdotal, admittedly, but there does appear to be a quiet determination from pretty much everyone I speak to, to keep the heating off much longer than would normally be the case.
Much of this is very obviously price driven, through fear of the increases, and we have of course been spoiled by a very mild autumn so far, but I think it has morphed somewhat into a rather quiet, blitz-spirit like attitude bubbling below the surface, even in people who are well-off enough to pay the prices if they wanted to, particularly with the support scheme in place. If this is being repeated across society then the gas stocks in reserve must be significant.
Off-topic: I hope Smarkets win a big chunk of market share from Betfair before the 2024 USPE. As well as delaying paying out my winnings on Biden for ages in 2020 until the last MAGA nut in Viking headwear and waving a Confederacy flag was safely in custody, BF also recently slashed my deposit limit by more than 95% without telling me, won't acknowledge what they did, and won't reinstall it.
i'm surprised at that. if you're betting on the exchange it isnt their money at risk from your activities.
Smarkets is both: they're an exchange, but they also take risk.
(As in, they will have market makers on the various markets to ensure liquidity, and to encourage people to use their exchange. Not a stupid idea at all.)
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
AFAIK it is damage due to overloading the grid at the entry point that makes them switch off, rather than damage to the turbines. As PB will be very tired of me saying, they get paid to switch off, more than they actually get paid for producing power.
Tired of you saying that because it's cobblers.
No, it's not cobblers, it's easily verifiable fact.
"Wind farm owners charge more per unit to reduce output than they earn through generating. For wind farms subsidised under the Renewables Obligation (RO) the income foregone when instructed to reduce output is the value of the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC). Typically, wind farms ask to be paid much more than the lost income, and in the early days of wind farm constraint payments, the premiums charged for not generating were very high indeed. For example, in 2011, Crystal Rig 2 charged £991 per MWh to reduce output compared to the value of the ROC at that time of £42 per MWh. Kilbraur, Millennium, Farr, An Suidhe were charging between £200 to £320 per MWh constrained-off in 2011.!
This was regarded as an abuse of market power, and the Government introduced the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition (TCLC) in 2012, which sought to prevent excessive bid prices in the event of a constraint. While there can be no doubt that the TCLC resulted in a reduction in prices, they are still well in excess of the subsidy foregone in 2019
...Assuming the 2019 ROC value will be approximately £55, these wind farms would receive £49 per MWh if generating but ask for and receive £96-£98 per MWh not to generate and thus get a premium of £47–£49 above the subsidy when constrained off. The five wind farms with the lowest constraint prices are older wind farms which receive 1 ROC per MWh. In 2019, they were setting constraint prices of £64-£69 per MWh to reduce output, thus getting a premium of £10-£15 per MWh."
Per unit, not in total.
My statement doesn't refer to a total, but even if it did, I'd have been correct. In 2020, Corriegarth Wind Farm constrained 51% of its power, Strathy North constrained 48%. Assuming even a modest premium per unit above what they get for power generation, that means they did make more than half their money from switching off. https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/371-constraint-payments-to-wind-power-in-2020-and-2021
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
AFAIK it is damage due to overloading the grid at the entry point that makes them switch off, rather than damage to the turbines. As PB will be very tired of me saying, they get paid to switch off, more than they actually get paid for producing power.
That may be one aspect of it, but from my limited knowledge, it's more to do with the stresses excess winds put on the blades, gearing and generator. Whilst some turbines have gears (to convert the blades' rotation to an ideal faster speed for the generator), it is fixed-ratio and not variable gearing - i.e. you cannot change from gear 1 to gear 2. This means that when the wind speeds are low, the turbine is very inefficient. It also means that when wind speeds are high, the blades can overspeed and the mechanism can be damaged. For instance, you do not want the blade tip speed reaching the speed of sound, which is surprisingly easy with rotors many tens of metres in diameter. So in high winds, they feather the blades.
Then there are direct-drive turbines with no gearing, which are inefficient as the generator does not work as well, as it wants a fast input shaft rotation speed.
ISTR a Dutch company was attempting a variable gearbox on a turbine a few years back, but there are issues in that they are much more complex, and doing anything more than routine maintenance on a turbine many tens of metres above the ground is difficult.
(IANAE, etc, etc)
I thought you were an engineer (by training at least), but just not that kind of engineer.
Lot's of people think I'm so long-winded that I must be an expert on wind power ...
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
Yeah, but... so what?
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
In summary: so what?
I may be a bit behind the curve, not being a regular user of Twitter, but certainly in my experience if I see the blue tick, I don’t question that the source is the legitimate person/company/what-have-you.
Surely the utility of the platform is significantly weakened if that system breaks down, because the reliability of the information is questionable. And in turn that will put off those in the media who use it as a reporting tool.
There surely has to be a chance (though still slight) that if they don’t get on top of this, Twitter could be the first big social media casualty since MySpace.
So... the media using it as a reporting tool is what drives revenue? And them deserting the platform will cause it to collapse?
Even if that did eventually happen - and I am very unconvinced it will - I don't see why it matters right now.
Certainly one of the big things that drives Twitter is the fact it is a quick direct line to news and developments about people and organisations. That surely drives a significant chunk of its traffic, not the people who use it to have a debate (there are better platforms out there for that).
If traffic collapses, revenue collapses and value collapses.
Maybe; I have no idea. The guy who just spent $44bn on it probably has a pretty good idea what makes it money and what doesn't (only probably, because of who is).
But I don't care about what is and is not long term good business sense for Musk with regards to Twitter. I'm specifically responding to people who think there's some negative impact on wider society happening right now because a billionaire bought a 15 year old company and made a well-publicised change to what symbols mean when used on its platform.
A lot of this is anecdotal, admittedly, but there does appear to be a quiet determination from pretty much everyone I speak to, to keep the heating off much longer than would normally be the case.
Much of this is very obviously price driven, through fear of the increases, and we have of course been spoiled by a very mild autumn so far, but I think it has morphed somewhat into a rather quiet, blitz-spirit like attitude bubbling below the surface, even in people who are well-off enough to pay the prices if they wanted to, particularly with the support scheme in place. If this is being repeated across society then the gas stocks in reserve must be significant.
I have heard similar.
That said, it has also been unseasonably warm. I think I've had the heating on for two evenings and one morning so far this autumn...
The race for Washington's 3rd House district tightened yesterday. Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez now leads Trumpista Joe Kent 132,161 to 126,279. (After Wednesday's count, the race was 117,179-108,324.)
(I made a quick search, but didn't find any explanation for the tightening.)
I really, really want Joe Kent to lose. In our top-two primary, he narrowly edged out Jaime Herra Beutler, one of the ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after January 6th. (It was considered a safe Republican district before that primary.)
Slightly off topic: Kamski - I hope you are able to go to the Seahawks game this Sunday. (As I am sure you know, they don't play in Germany every year.)
I see they are playing in Munich - bit of a trek for me. Funnily enough, I'm taking my boy to his first football (I guess you'd call it soccer) match with a few friends tomorrow: Leverkusen vs Stuttgart (impossible to get Effzeh (Köln) tickets, plus one of his best friends is a fan). He's going to be wearing his Kane England shirt probably. Tickets not too expensive - 30 Euros adult, 12 Euros child.
Today the biggest 11/11 carnival crowds I've ever seen here I think - probably pent up "demand" (this year's carnival proper was very subdued because the war had just started, and last year ran into Covid), plus the fine weather. Streets full of people in crazy costumes.
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
AFAIK it is damage due to overloading the grid at the entry point that makes them switch off, rather than damage to the turbines. As PB will be very tired of me saying, they get paid to switch off, more than they actually get paid for producing power.
Tired of you saying that because it's cobblers.
No, it's not cobblers, it's easily verifiable fact.
"Wind farm owners charge more per unit to reduce output than they earn through generating. For wind farms subsidised under the Renewables Obligation (RO) the income foregone when instructed to reduce output is the value of the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC). Typically, wind farms ask to be paid much more than the lost income, and in the early days of wind farm constraint payments, the premiums charged for not generating were very high indeed. For example, in 2011, Crystal Rig 2 charged £991 per MWh to reduce output compared to the value of the ROC at that time of £42 per MWh. Kilbraur, Millennium, Farr, An Suidhe were charging between £200 to £320 per MWh constrained-off in 2011.!
This was regarded as an abuse of market power, and the Government introduced the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition (TCLC) in 2012, which sought to prevent excessive bid prices in the event of a constraint. While there can be no doubt that the TCLC resulted in a reduction in prices, they are still well in excess of the subsidy foregone in 2019
...Assuming the 2019 ROC value will be approximately £55, these wind farms would receive £49 per MWh if generating but ask for and receive £96-£98 per MWh not to generate and thus get a premium of £47–£49 above the subsidy when constrained off. The five wind farms with the lowest constraint prices are older wind farms which receive 1 ROC per MWh. In 2019, they were setting constraint prices of £64-£69 per MWh to reduce output, thus getting a premium of £10-£15 per MWh."
Per unit, not in total.
My statement doesn't refer to a total, but even if it did, I'd have been correct. In 2020, Corriegarth Wind Farm constrained 51% of its power, Strathy North constrained 48%. Assuming even a modest premium per unit above what they get for power generation, that means they did make more than half their money from switching off. https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/371-constraint-payments-to-wind-power-in-2020-and-2021
My recollection - which may be wrong - is that most of the problem is caused by lack of interconnector capacity to take away wind power, rather than lack of demand for the power itself.
Scotland currently getting a good 25% of European wind, balance to Norway and the Baltics
Next Tuesday evening forecast to be a bonanza for North Sea wind farms.
Looking good. Now, if only they had a linked array of Starfish Prime™ storage batteries to feed into.
Is there a maximum wind speed above which more wind becomes useless for the purposes if electricity generation?
Very much so. At a certain windspeed they turn them off (ie stop them turning) presumably to prevent damage.
AFAIK it is damage due to overloading the grid at the entry point that makes them switch off, rather than damage to the turbines. As PB will be very tired of me saying, they get paid to switch off, more than they actually get paid for producing power.
Tired of you saying that because it's cobblers.
No, it's not cobblers, it's easily verifiable fact.
"Wind farm owners charge more per unit to reduce output than they earn through generating. For wind farms subsidised under the Renewables Obligation (RO) the income foregone when instructed to reduce output is the value of the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC). Typically, wind farms ask to be paid much more than the lost income, and in the early days of wind farm constraint payments, the premiums charged for not generating were very high indeed. For example, in 2011, Crystal Rig 2 charged £991 per MWh to reduce output compared to the value of the ROC at that time of £42 per MWh. Kilbraur, Millennium, Farr, An Suidhe were charging between £200 to £320 per MWh constrained-off in 2011.!
This was regarded as an abuse of market power, and the Government introduced the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition (TCLC) in 2012, which sought to prevent excessive bid prices in the event of a constraint. While there can be no doubt that the TCLC resulted in a reduction in prices, they are still well in excess of the subsidy foregone in 2019
...Assuming the 2019 ROC value will be approximately £55, these wind farms would receive £49 per MWh if generating but ask for and receive £96-£98 per MWh not to generate and thus get a premium of £47–£49 above the subsidy when constrained off. The five wind farms with the lowest constraint prices are older wind farms which receive 1 ROC per MWh. In 2019, they were setting constraint prices of £64-£69 per MWh to reduce output, thus getting a premium of £10-£15 per MWh."
Per unit, not in total.
My statement doesn't refer to a total, but even if it did, I'd have been correct. In 2020, Corriegarth Wind Farm constrained 51% of its power, Strathy North constrained 48%. Assuming even a modest premium per unit above what they get for power generation, that means they did make more than half their money from switching off. https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/371-constraint-payments-to-wind-power-in-2020-and-2021
My recollection - which may be wrong - is that most of the problem is caused by lack of interconnector capacity to take away wind power, rather than lack of demand for the power itself.
That's true, but that is an entirely predictable issue. Why give planning permission to a wind farm that's behind an interconnector bottleneck - especially if it's smack bang in an area of outstanding natural beauty?
Why apply to build one? That's a different story - it's a license to print money; the more remote and inaccessible the better.
Comments
This chart shows a lot of wind was lost overnight.
https://www.smartgriddashboard.com/#all/wind
How likely that they slip into 218-219 seats? Lower than 33% surely?
This includes both boobytraps and the use of radiocontrolled triggers.
The Nazis said the rounding up of Jews in Kiev and the massacre of tens of thousands at Babi Yar in late 1941 was in retaliation for such explosions in Kiev in which ~1000 German soldiers died.
Some cities in Ukraine and small towns too changed hands several times during WW2.
If anyone is interested in the Makhnovshchina, the town of Gulyai Pole in Zaporozhye had earlier changed hands a very large number of times during the civil war. Gulyai Pole was Nestor Makhno's birthplace and the centre of the Makhnovist movement to the extent that it had a centre.
So..."be wary when the enemy leaves a town they used to hold" is a big thing in Ukraine - that's my point.
Firstly, it suggest Russia has no agency in its decision: it was purely reactive to 'our' aggression (and it's odd how the same sort of people always make it out to be 'our' fault, not the fascists running Russia). In reality,, Russia had all the agency.
Secondly, there has not been a great deal of 'talk' of Ukraine joining NATO. At least, until February 24th.
Thirdly, it ignores Russia's imperial ambitions, as has been stated by Putin and others often enough in the last year. This tragic war is not a defensive action by Russia; it is part of a desire to rebuild Russia's stronkiness on the world stage.
Fourthly, anyone arguing the above has to say why the countries of eastern Europe do not deserve the right to self-determination. Why should a failed power say what groupings its neighbours (or distant neighbours) are part of, under threat of war? We should be trying to move away from that model of world affairs.
Fifthly, Putin wanted this war. As such, anything we did could be seen as a reason or excuse for him doing it. The only way to have stopped him would have been to show that we would help Ukraine in the manner we have. And sadly, in Syria and elsewhere, we showed that we would do next to nothing.
Do not excuse Russia by trying to put the blame on the west. The blame is totally, solely, on Putin and Russia.
Not a chance he doesn't run.
No doubt if there are more efficient ways of capturing the wind they will be unearthed - the technology is still relatively young.
There are at least 5 of those races where the GOP leads but the lead is squeaky-narrow.
It is not inconceivable that we could be looking at something like a 218-217 House in favour of the GOP but I agree the chances are probably pretty low. It requires all the tight races where Democrats are leading to also fall into their column.
There is a crazy-bonkers path to a 218-217 Democratic House, but I think it relies simply too much on absolutely everything going right for them to be a conceivable outcome.
Not saying it's not a lame attack - don't know enough about the circumstances. It's mildly amusing as a play on words.
In the two previous updates from Washoe Masto split thos ballots 60-35.
So taking the low end she gets 6250 votes from Washoe alone.
There are 6-7k votes in Douglas. Let's assume that LAxalt wins that in line with current votes 65/31 that gets him 2380 votes.
So Washoe - Douglas leaves CCM up 3870.
So she would then need to get 6608 from Clark.
On a 60-35 split (which is worse that what MAsto has got from previous Clark releases) that would need only 30,000 votes outstanding in Clark to take it by ~1000 votes. There are more than 30,000 votes outstanding in Clark.
The only thing that saves Laxalt is:
More hidden Rurals, there are potentially some in Carson City but CCM actually won the last mail update from there.
The Douglas split going way more in Laxalt favour (hugely unlikely).
The Clark vote counters having fucked up and there being less ballots outstanding than they said.
Obviously the chief drivers of inflation have been global food/energy prices, and the labour shortage.
But corporate profiteering has also been fingered in the US, with some justification.
Hunt can talk about inflation, but as you say, what really (apart from questionable fiscal retrenchment) is he actually doing about it?
The Ryanair of online retail.
Looking at 538 there are 20 House seats left to call. The Republicans have 211, the Democrats 204, with 218 needed for a majority.
So you are betting that the Republicans will pick up at least 9 of those 20.
I think the Dems are up in 9 or so of the remainder, the Reps in 8, and 3 are literally 50% v 50%. The margins are very close in all but a handful. The votes counted late tend to include votes trickling in by post, or provisional ballots subject to verification checks, which tend to favour the Democrats, votes cast on polling day tending to favour Republicans. Although that's not always the case, quite a few uncalled seats are in California where it is.
I think it is still in the balance whether the Republicans even get a majority in the House and that they are more likely than not to end up with less than 220.
Twitter is currently a larger bin fire than normal.
I think that 2024 may be the time to lay Republicans, there could be a civil war in that party.
So, although peak winds in small areas might be so strong they have to shut turbines down to protect them, in general the optimally strong winds cover a much larger area.
I'd say to stop cheering the wind when it's strong enough to bring down electricity pylons. Not much use wind turbines producing electricity in the North Sea if the grid has been blown over so it can't be delivered to your house. So a Met Office red wind warning is too much wind, but most of the time an amber warning is okay.
How would profiteering work. You would expect companies to be getting undercut if there isn't some kind of price competition.
Some people are acting like "blue ticks" are this sacrosanct thing that have always been a solid gold mark of reliability.
Even if that was true, it's still a standard that Twitter introduced themselves just over ten years ago, and were always somewhat controversial - in part because of how opaque the decision process was as to who did and didn't get one.
So, so what if now it means literally nothing at all?
There will no doubt be a bunch of people over the next few years who get stung by a parody/scam account because they haven't adjusted to the new system yet. But, a) you should never believe anything you see on Twitter without a credible external link anyway, b) a lot of those people are probably dumb enough to have been stung anyway, and c) probably no-one will lose any money or anything else important over this, because you shouldn't be using Twitter as (for example) a direct replacement for your bank's account helpline.
In summary: so what?
Ouch.
https://twitter.com/ftx_official/status/1591071832823959552?s=61&t=IAP9RgTqNUSqMftjpBdwUg
https://twitter.com/anaceballos_/status/1591048770187235328
We’re generating a handy 1.4gw of Solar energy currently too. Not bad for November.
Surely the utility of the platform is significantly weakened if that system breaks down, because the reliability of the information is questionable. And in turn that will put off those in the media who use it as a reporting tool.
There surely has to be a chance (though still slight) that if they don’t get on top of this, Twitter could be the first big social media casualty since MySpace.
🧵 Unsurprisingly, Russian state TV news bulletins this afternoon make no mention of the Ukrainian advance in Kherson. But channels are reporting the MOD’s earlier statement that said the military has completed what it called a ‘re-deployment’ of forces (that is, a retreat). 🧵👇
https://twitter.com/BBCWillVernon/status/1591070077071216640
The Kyiv Independent
@KyivIndependent
⚡️ Peskov says 'Kherson remains Russian' as Ukrainian forces enter city.
Kremlin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia continues to consider Kherson its territory, despite the withdrawal of its troops from the city, according to Russian state-controlled news agency TASS.
https://mobile.twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1591070909552807940
Seriously though, this could cause all sorts of fun* fake news - as journalists take tweets at face value and report. They shouldn't, of course, but I'm sure they will, for a time at least.
*not fun
If the big media houses and corporations quit, Twitter is in trouble.
Or, now, ads showing his followers who have been convicted.
Following Trump can be bad for your wealth, your health, and even your freedom. It shouldn't be hard to explain those facts to voters
Even if that did eventually happen - and I am very unconvinced it will - I don't see why it matters right now.
World's easiest pump and dump.
Then there are direct-drive turbines with no gearing, which are inefficient as the generator does not work as well, as it wants a fast input shaft rotation speed.
ISTR a Dutch company was attempting a variable gearbox on a turbine a few years back, but there are issues in that they are much more complex, and doing anything more than routine maintenance on a turbine many tens of metres above the ground is difficult.
(IANAE, etc, etc)
I do understand the utility of it, in a system much more complicated than ours. If you’re obliged to jump through so many hoops to cast your vote, if something procedurally wrong is done then at least you get a chance to register your vote rather than being disenfranchised. But in an ideal world the system wouldn’t be as complex or as demanding on a voter to the point where such a system were needed.
Nevada Dems use the local union workers to turnout voters and get them to the voting centre to fix the ballots.
If traffic collapses, revenue collapses and value collapses.
UK 🤝 France
https://twitter.com/FCDOGovUK/status/1591076838486458370
"The European Union has replaced most of the Russian gas with LNG imports-The European Commission"
https://twitter.com/LWNChannel/status/1591076555341860864
https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/morning_roundup/2016/07/clinton-ad-features-trump-taj-mahal-worker-donald.html
They were apparently pretty persuasive in focus group testing but they couldn't get them infront of the right eyes and people were sceptical of them because "The news wasn't saying anything about Trump stiffing contractors"
Lock the verified name to the name on the credit card. Change it and you lose the blue tick.
Either that or a lot of media outlets have also been duped 😂
https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/354-a-decade-of-constraint-payments
"Wind farm owners charge more per unit to reduce output than they earn through generating. For wind farms subsidised under the Renewables Obligation (RO) the income foregone when instructed to reduce output is the value of the Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROC). Typically, wind farms ask to be paid much more than the lost income, and in the early days of wind farm constraint payments, the premiums charged for not generating were very high indeed. For example, in 2011, Crystal Rig 2 charged £991 per MWh to reduce output compared to the value of the ROC at that time of £42 per MWh. Kilbraur, Millennium, Farr, An Suidhe were charging between £200 to £320 per MWh constrained-off in 2011.!
This was regarded as an abuse of market power, and the Government introduced the Transmission Constraint Licence Condition (TCLC) in 2012, which sought to prevent excessive bid prices in the event of a constraint. While there can be no doubt that the TCLC resulted in a reduction in prices, they are still well in excess of the subsidy foregone in 2019
...Assuming the 2019 ROC value will be approximately £55, these wind farms would receive £49 per MWh if generating but ask for and receive £96-£98 per MWh not to generate and thus get a premium of £47–£49 above the subsidy when constrained off. The five wind farms with the lowest constraint prices are older wind farms which receive 1 ROC per MWh. In 2019, they were setting constraint prices of £64-£69 per MWh to reduce output, thus getting a premium of £10-£15 per MWh."
It's reportedly rather profitable, but so long as it continues as it is, that doesn't bother me much.
What, like per day?
"Mr Wales, what is the purpose of your visit to the UK?"
"I'm here for a conference, I founded Wikipedia, you know."
Whereupon the junior Border Patrol agent got a little confused, and thought he meant wikileaks, with the consequence that Mr Wales was sent for secondary screening.
It is a reminder that - when entering countries - one should only give the information asked for, and never boast.
ETA. if the deposit limit is because they think you might be betting more than you can afford they ought to be open about it and give you the opportunity to prove you are ok with your level of betting.
Much of this is very obviously price driven, through fear of the increases, and we have of course been spoiled by a very mild autumn so far, but I think it has morphed somewhat into a rather quiet, blitz-spirit like attitude bubbling below the surface, even in people who are well-off enough to pay the prices if they wanted to, particularly with the support scheme in place. If this is being repeated across society then the gas stocks in reserve must be significant.
(As in, they will have market makers on the various markets to ensure liquidity, and to encourage people to use their exchange. Not a stupid idea at all.)
https://www.ref.org.uk/ref-blog/371-constraint-payments-to-wind-power-in-2020-and-2021
But I don't care about what is and is not long term good business sense for Musk with regards to Twitter. I'm specifically responding to people who think there's some negative impact on wider society happening right now because a billionaire bought a 15 year old company and made a well-publicised change to what symbols mean when used on its platform.
That said, it has also been unseasonably warm. I think I've had the heating on for two evenings and one morning so far this autumn...
(I made a quick search, but didn't find any explanation for the tightening.)
I really, really want Joe Kent to lose. In our top-two primary, he narrowly edged out Jaime Herra Beutler, one of the ten Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after January 6th. (It was considered a safe Republican district before that primary.)
Today the biggest 11/11 carnival crowds I've ever seen here I think - probably pent up "demand" (this year's carnival proper was very subdued because the war had just started, and last year ran into Covid), plus the fine weather. Streets full of people in crazy costumes.
Why apply to build one? That's a different story - it's a license to print money; the more remote and inaccessible the better.