That's a fascinating story on Britain losing its telecoms lead due to anti-state dogma, Horse, although I'm not sure if all that language was quite called for.
It reminds me of an oft-told story I've often heard from a friend in computing. Britain was still pretty far ahead in the late '80s with machines like the Acorn Archimedes, largely due to the state-funded BBC Micro, which in turn had been hugely criticised at the time on the hoary old Thatcherite ideological grounds of the Dti "state picking winners". Result : no more state-funded projects like the BBC MIcro, and not that much later, most of the main parts of the British hardware computer industry had either left a long way behind, or bought out. Only Starmer shows any sign of knowing how to fix this failure of ideology in industrial policy in the long-term, unlike any of the other party leaders.
Most of that is simply not true. The Archimedes came out when it was already far too late to try and buck the "IBM compatible" standard
The failure to get out of the hobby machine space was the real problem, much earlier
So Sinclair didn't make a machine with a keyboard you could actually type on.
One company made an after market setup for the ZX-81 - a metal case, a bit like the BBC shape. Ventilation, space for the 16K RAM pack (on a cable to prevent wobble problems). The power supply was in the case, but in a separate, ventilated compartment. The external plug sockets on the case were robust.
Essentially they'd fixed nearly all the problems with the ZX-81. Even as a kid, I could see that.... Sinclair sued them, of course.
At the very least, Britain seems to have weakened its position by not investing further in hardware computing in the late '80s, which is a very, very familiar story across many sectors, as Horse points out with Britain also having lost its telecoms lead not long after this.
According to this, the Archimedes, which was originally designated a "BBC Computer" and emerged out of the subsidies for the BBC Micro, became for a while a kind of educational and music industry standard.
That would seem to strongly indicate that there was obviously enough there to build something further on.
As someone who was building computers from scratch etc at this time. No. The Archimedes attained a certain measure of success by being the very late successor to the BBC micro. But the idea that it could have ever taken on the IBM compatibles - nope. They weren't a British Apple, or anything close to that.
And yet, as mentioned, and according to the article, despite the considerable odds stacked against it still succeeded in becoming a standard in the niche sectors of music and education. Who knows what could happened there in the future too, I wonder.
Perhaps it would have been left behind eventually, but the whole approach to long-term industrial investment at this time, across many, many sectors, was completely wrong.
Rather OT, but there's been a huge thunderstorm here from about 5pm. As I am a tragic nerd I have graphs.
It's now reached that humidity level where I feel like I'm breathing in kettle-fumes.
The high frequency fluctuations in temperature stand out. Are they normal? Where did you source those data?
The temperature stuff is a little erratic on a short-term view. It's just a pi-zero with an Enviro+ ( https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/enviro?variant=31155658489939) which sits right over the pi's CPU so tends to come and go a bit temperature-wise. Some of the other sensors are - ballpark - accurate though.
Fortunately we have some proper sport next week at Ascot - the best five days of horse racing in the entire year. An element of England vs Australia in the King's Stand on the opening day.
Omnisis and Techne both showing a renewed extension of the Labour lead. Omnisis continues to show the largest share for Labour at 48% and a 17% swing from the Conservatives while Techne weighs in with a more restrained 14% move.
Last night's by-elections were mainly in seats countermanded from May and these tidied up LD control of Surrey Heath and confirmed Independent control of West Devon.
That's a fascinating story on Britain losing its telecoms lead due to anti-state dogma, Horse, although I'm not sure if all that language was quite called for.
It reminds me of an oft-told story I've often heard from a friend in computing. Britain was still pretty far ahead in the late '80s with machines like the Acorn Archimedes, largely due to the state-funded BBC Micro, which in turn had been hugely criticised at the time on the hoary old Thatcherite ideological grounds of the Dti "state picking winners". Result : no more state-funded projects like the BBC MIcro, and not that much later, most of the main parts of the British hardware computer industry had either left a long way behind, or bought out. Only Starmer shows any sign of knowing how to fix this failure of ideology in industrial policy in the long-term, unlike any of the other party leaders.
Most of that is simply not true. The Archimedes came out when it was already far too late to try and buck the "IBM compatible" standard
The failure to get out of the hobby machine space was the real problem, much earlier
So Sinclair didn't make a machine with a keyboard you could actually type on.
One company made an after market setup for the ZX-81 - a metal case, a bit like the BBC shape. Ventilation, space for the 16K RAM pack (on a cable to prevent wobble problems). The power supply was in the case, but in a separate, ventilated compartment. The external plug sockets on the case were robust.
Essentially they'd fixed nearly all the problems with the ZX-81. Even as a kid, I could see that.... Sinclair sued them, of course.
At the very least, Britain seems to have weakened its position by not investing further in hardware computing in the late '80s, which is a very, very familiar story across many sectors, as Horse points out with Britain also having lost its telecoms lead not long after this.
According to this, the Archimedes, which was originally designated a "BBC Computer" and emerged out of the subsidies for the BBC Micro, became for a while a kind of educational and music industry standard.
That would seem to strongly indicate that there was obviously enough there to build something further on.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
There’s an American Alan partridge who walks to that service station every day, hangs out, and then walks back to his hotel. Don’t knock shitty service stations.
That's a fascinating story on Britain losing its telecoms lead due to anti-state dogma, Horse, although I'm not sure if all that language was quite called for.
It reminds me of an oft-told story I've often heard from a friend in computing. Britain was still pretty far ahead in the late '80s with machines like the Acorn Archimedes, largely due to the state-funded BBC Micro, which in turn had been hugely criticised at the time on the hoary old Thatcherite ideological grounds of the Dti "state picking winners". Result : no more state-funded projects like the BBC MIcro, and not that much later, most of the main parts of the British hardware computer industry had either left a long way behind, or bought out. Only Starmer shows any sign of knowing how to fix this failure of ideology in industrial policy in the long-term, unlike any of the other party leaders.
Most of that is simply not true. The Archimedes came out when it was already far too late to try and buck the "IBM compatible" standard
The failure to get out of the hobby machine space was the real problem, much earlier
So Sinclair didn't make a machine with a keyboard you could actually type on.
One company made an after market setup for the ZX-81 - a metal case, a bit like the BBC shape. Ventilation, space for the 16K RAM pack (on a cable to prevent wobble problems). The power supply was in the case, but in a separate, ventilated compartment. The external plug sockets on the case were robust.
Essentially they'd fixed nearly all the problems with the ZX-81. Even as a kid, I could see that.... Sinclair sued them, of course.
At the very least, Britain seems to have weakened its position by not investing further in hardware computing in the late '80s, which is a very, very familiar story across many sectors, as Horse points out with Britain also having lost its telecoms lead not long after this.
According to this, the Archimedes, which was originally designated a "BBC Computer" and emerged out of the subsidies for the BBC Micro, became for a while a kind of educational and music industry standard.
That would seem to strongly indicate that there was obviously enough there to build something further on.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
There’s an American Alan partridge who walks to that service station every day, hangs out, and then walks back to his hotel. Don’t knock shitty service stations.
And sorry, but they need to get that Trump does t give the tiniest fuck about them. They are useful idiots. It’s tragic.
That's a fascinating story on Britain losing its telecoms lead due to anti-state dogma, Horse, although I'm not sure if all that language was quite called for.
It reminds me of an oft-told story I've often heard from a friend in computing. Britain was still pretty far ahead in the late '80s with machines like the Acorn Archimedes, largely due to the state-funded BBC Micro, which in turn had been hugely criticised at the time on the hoary old Thatcherite ideological grounds of the Dti "state picking winners". Result : no more state-funded projects like the BBC MIcro, and not that much later, most of the main parts of the British hardware computer industry had either left a long way behind, or bought out. Only Starmer shows any sign of knowing how to fix this failure of ideology in industrial policy in the long-term, unlike any of the other party leaders.
Most of that is simply not true. The Archimedes came out when it was already far too late to try and buck the "IBM compatible" standard
The failure to get out of the hobby machine space was the real problem, much earlier
So Sinclair didn't make a machine with a keyboard you could actually type on.
One company made an after market setup for the ZX-81 - a metal case, a bit like the BBC shape. Ventilation, space for the 16K RAM pack (on a cable to prevent wobble problems). The power supply was in the case, but in a separate, ventilated compartment. The external plug sockets on the case were robust.
Essentially they'd fixed nearly all the problems with the ZX-81. Even as a kid, I could see that.... Sinclair sued them, of course.
At the very least, Britain seems to have weakened its position by not investing further in hardware computing in the late '80s, which is a very, very familiar story across many sectors, as Horse points out with Britain also having lost its telecoms lead not long after this.
According to this, the Archimedes, which was originally designated a "BBC Computer" and emerged out of the subsidies for the BBC Micro, became for a while a kind of educational and music industry standard.
That would seem to strongly indicate that there was obviously enough there to build something further on.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
Lots of people do buy that lie. Rural rednecks used to vote Democrat, and LBJ made sure his Great Society programme worked for them as much as Urban Black Americans.
Republicans massively succeeded in getting poor people to vote to cut their social programmes to fund rich peoples tax cuts.
Mr. Boy, the fiction that England 'must' be split up rather than have its own Parliament is the view of those who have no idea that English identity exists. The sort of politicians who are content to be British but rather wary of ever being English.
Whether England's regions should have their own representation in a federal set up is a question for the English, I'm not expressing a normative view here. I'm simply pointing out that a federal set up where one part is 90% of the population of the whole is going to run into problems pretty quickly. But ignoring Scotland's desire to run much of its own affairs simply wasn't, and still isn't, an option, sorry.
Then scotland can vote to be independent and go manage its own affairs, very few of us would shed a tear frankly.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
There’s an American Alan partridge who walks to that service station every day, hangs out, and then walks back to his hotel. Don’t knock shitty service stations.
Does one of the mates of the guy behind the counter like "British Things"?
British Telecom literally wrote the book on FTTP, in fact they were so good at it other countries paid us for advice. Many of the patents, innovations and technology were invented here in the UK.
When St Margaret stopped BT's FTTP rollout because of fears it would damage competition, we sold all our expertise and knowledge, to South Korea.
Who leads the world in broadband now? South Korea.
I will not be argued with by people that have no actual knowledge of working in this sector, as is manifestly clear from some of the absolute rubbish I see written on here about BT.
You talk bollocks, when bt was nationalised they wanted nothing to do with adsl, they wanted isdn line
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
There’s an American Alan partridge who walks to that service station every day, hangs out, and then walks back to his hotel. Don’t knock shitty service stations.
Not knocking it at all! I genuinely love little places like this. Not another generic Exxon outlet
It sold homemade “sweet Allegheny West Virginia mustard” next to the root beer and condoms and I bought a jar. $4. Might be brilliant might be hideous. Adore stuff like that. You don’t get it in Shell gas stations
My main memory of BR was that punctuality was similar, carriages were more tatty, there were waiting-rooms for cold days, some of which were a right-off, and others of which were fine, and everything was much, much cheaper.
It all may depend on one's ideological preference, ofcourse, but I didn't see any great improvement in service, that I can remember.
Maybe a dumb question but does anyone know how to stream live Channel 4 on an Android Smart TV? I want to put on the England game.
I've gone onto the 4 app and I can see categories of programmes but not a live option.
You have just missed a belter by TAA.
Thanks for that. 😅
Found a 'Freeview Play' app, thought it might be on that. No, still no live 4 shown it still just shows categories of programmes to stream.
Is your TV tuned in via the antenna??
No, its the 21st Century, I don't have an antenna I stream over the internet.
Your current difficulties may have exposed a flaw in that approach. Just a thought.
We keep our satellite dish and Sky box just for the free to air stuff even though we stopped paying for it years ago just in case there’s problems with the interwebs. And via that medium I am watching the game right now.
The point being they were an even bigger shit show when they were in public hands. Priatisation gave us the ability to move away from them. I had Mercury and then Virgin (and a hugely better service) as soon as possible in the 90s while BT were still no where in sight. Something that was actually illegal prior to 1982.
Using the continued failings of the formally public company as an argument against the ability to choose other, better service providers is, frankly, perverse.
So you are, as usual, talking bollocks
You've worked in telecoms have you? It sounds like you haven't, because you are talking out of your rear end.
If BT had been allowed to install FTTP to every home, we'd have the best broadband network in the world. It would have cost a fraction of what it is costing now. These are objective facts, feel free to Google FTTP rollout per KM now vs 1980 but I know you won't.
Sod off out of here.
"This call is being monitored for customer service purposes. What is your issue please caller".
I suppose we should be glad that at least you weren't doing it from India.
I'm glad you've conceded you don't know what you are talking about.
You really don't know what you are talking about, did you ever live under bt when it was nationalised? I doubt it if you think it would be better as a public service. They were completely shit. They rejected asdl, getting a phone line took months and you could only connect kit they rented you.
BT in public hands was the shittiest experience you can imagine. You want to go back there then you can fuck off.
That's a fascinating story on Britain losing its telecoms lead due to anti-state dogma, Horse, although I'm not sure if all that language was quite called for.
It reminds me of an oft-told story I've often heard from a friend in computing. Britain was still pretty far ahead in the late '80s with machines like the Acorn Archimedes, largely due to the state-funded BBC Micro, which in turn had been hugely criticised at the time on the hoary old Thatcherite ideological grounds of the Dti "state picking winners". Result : no more state-funded projects like the BBC MIcro, and not that much later, most of the main parts of the British hardware computer industry had either left a long way behind, or bought out. Only Starmer shows any sign of knowing how to fix this failure of ideology in industrial policy in the long-term, unlike any of the other party leaders.
Most of that is simply not true. The Archimedes came out when it was already far too late to try and buck the "IBM compatible" standard
The failure to get out of the hobby machine space was the real problem, much earlier
So Sinclair didn't make a machine with a keyboard you could actually type on.
One company made an after market setup for the ZX-81 - a metal case, a bit like the BBC shape. Ventilation, space for the 16K RAM pack (on a cable to prevent wobble problems). The power supply was in the case, but in a separate, ventilated compartment. The external plug sockets on the case were robust.
Essentially they'd fixed nearly all the problems with the ZX-81. Even as a kid, I could see that.... Sinclair sued them, of course.
At the very least, Britain seems to have weakened its position by not investing further in hardware computing in the late '80s, which is a very, very familiar story across many sectors, as Horse points out with Britain also having lost its telecoms lead not long after this…
I’m not sure lead is quite the right word, but we were certainly a very strong player.
Our challenge essentially ended thanks to a series of disastrous takeovers at the end of the last century.
Ferranti’s purchase of the fraudulent US company International Signal and Control in 1987 bust it within five years. The behemoth (at one point quarter of a million employees) GEC swallowed Plessey, and after selling its defence business to British Aerospace, bought the US telecoms and internet equipment companies FORE and RELTEC for vastly inflated prices in 1999, crippling itself in the process. Ericsson bought most of what was left.
Racal spawned the highly successful Racal Vodaphone - but separated that from the manufacturing business, which was again ended up being sold off largely to European competitors.
Personally as a patriotic Brit who loves this country, I am proud of the innovations we've made and some of the companies and institutions we created.
Were they perfect, heck no. But the Tories are only interested in selling them off to the lowest bidder and damaging our legacies.
The country that invented the train can't run one on time. The country that pioneered the sewage system has yearly droughts. The country that invented much of the mobile technology system can't even get a train to have a reliable phone signal.
We are on our arses, it is time we did something different. Let's figure out what works and what doesn't. This country is broken.
If only the Romans had thought of having a sewage system. If we weren’t “on our arses” so much then it would at least give the sewerage system some time to regroup however.
The Indus Valley civilisation had a very good sewage system more than a millennium before the Romans and two millennia before us.
Were you alive then? It would explain most of your very out of date views.
Well we know you weren't around to suffer the shit show that was the GPO or the nationalised rail network.
I can tell you that the shittiness coefficent rapidly increased on privatisation!
This just simply isn't true.
I was there! I had to make a lot of cross country journeys and the connections went to pot as the companies wouldn't cooperate,
Well we'll disagree then. My experience of the pre-privatisation railways was universally awful. It's gradually improved over the years since privatisation to 'rather disappointing'.
BR was simply managing delicne, to the point where “We’re getting there” was their slogan, and their service was a punch line in comedy sketches. Add to what we now see as oddities, such as everyone smoking, and It really was that bad.
What measures do you have for BR's poor service? As someone who used the railways frequently before and after privatisation, I don't see what has been an article of faith, that it was so very bad back then and so very much better today.
So let's take feelings and anecdotes out of this once and for all and tell me: what measures can you show me to prove that point?
Okay, I’ll start with the number of paggengers choosing to use the service.
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
Thinking about it, you're right - some sitcoms date rather better. I can confirm that Dad's Army is still good (indeed, weirdly, I'd say it's better now than it was 30 years ago. Perhaps the humour has passed through being slightly dated, if it ever was, and come through as antique.) I would also add Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads (though it's predecessor, from the 60s 'The Likely Lads' has aged terribly - it feels like the writers were terrified of letting 20 seconds go by without a joke, with the result that none of them are any good; there is no space whatsoever in the script). Also Porridge. Also Allo Allo, I think. There are a lot which have aged terribly mind (or perhaps weren't very good in the first place).
Even when sitcoms aren't uproariously funny any more, they provide a fascinating bit of social history. I got quite absorbed a year or two back by 'I Didn't Know You Cared' - a fascinating picture of 1970s Sheffield; not for the bits you were necessarily expected to laugh at, but at the background situations you were expected to take as read. Similarly, 'Chance in a Million' from the 80s (which is also genuinely still funny).
The first couple of seasons of HI-de-Hi with Simon Cadell are also massively underrated (the later seasons are total trash). I think Allo Allo follows the same pattern.
Allo' Allo' just went on too long. Interesting comment in the Blackadder programme last night about why there was no fitf
Mr. Boy, the fiction that England 'must' be split up rather than have its own Parliament is the view of those who have no idea that English identity exists. The sort of politicians who are content to be British but rather wary of ever being English.
Whether England's regions should have their own representation in a federal set up is a question for the English, I'm not expressing a normative view here. I'm simply pointing out that a federal set up where one part is 90% of the population of the whole is going to run into problems pretty quickly. But ignoring Scotland's desire to run much of its own affairs simply wasn't, and still isn't, an option, sorry.
Then scotland can vote to be independent and go manage its own affairs, very few of us would shed a tear frankly.
How many in the EU shed tears over the UKs current economic woes? Would be the same in England should the Scots depart.
Personally as a patriotic Brit who loves this country, I am proud of the innovations we've made and some of the companies and institutions we created.
Were they perfect, heck no. But the Tories are only interested in selling them off to the lowest bidder and damaging our legacies.
The country that invented the train can't run one on time. The country that pioneered the sewage system has yearly droughts. The country that invented much of the mobile technology system can't even get a train to have a reliable phone signal.
We are on our arses, it is time we did something different. Let's figure out what works and what doesn't. This country is broken.
If only the Romans had thought of having a sewage system. If we weren’t “on our arses” so much then it would at least give the sewerage system some time to regroup however.
The Indus Valley civilisation had a very good sewage system more than a millennium before the Romans and two millennia before us.
Were you alive then? It would explain most of your very out of date views.
Well we know you weren't around to suffer the shit show that was the GPO or the nationalised rail network.
I can tell you that the shittiness coefficent rapidly increased on privatisation!
This just simply isn't true.
I was there! I had to make a lot of cross country journeys and the connections went to pot as the companies wouldn't cooperate,
Well we'll disagree then. My experience of the pre-privatisation railways was universally awful. It's gradually improved over the years since privatisation to 'rather disappointing'.
BR was simply managing delicne, to the point where “We’re getting there” was their slogan, and their service was a punch line in comedy sketches. Add to what we now see as oddities, such as everyone smoking, and It really was that bad.
What measures do you have for BR's poor service? As someone who used the railways frequently before and after privatisation, I don't see what has been an article of faith, that it was so very bad back then and so very much better today.
So let's take feelings and anecdotes out of this once and for all and tell me: what measures can you show me to prove that point?
Okay, I’ll start with the number of paggengers choosing to use the service.
Well, to a great extent, this reflected the options open to people. Roadbuilding slowed down in the 90s, and there are only so many people who can commute on the same road, so more people than before poured into the next option. Likely this would have happened under hypothetical BR. But the raw time series is not saying much without considering the alternatives.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
Lots of people do buy that lie. Rural rednecks used to vote Democrat, and LBJ made sure his Great Society programme worked for them as much as Urban Black Americans.
Republicans massively succeeded in getting poor people to vote to cut their social programmes to fund rich peoples tax cuts.
While Biden has brought massive manufacturing investment to several red states, and is getting minimal credit from the beneficiaries.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
Thinking about it, you're right - some sitcoms date rather better. I can confirm that Dad's Army is still good (indeed, weirdly, I'd say it's better now than it was 30 years ago. Perhaps the humour has passed through being slightly dated, if it ever was, and come through as antique.) I would also add Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads (though it's predecessor, from the 60s 'The Likely Lads' has aged terribly - it feels like the writers were terrified of letting 20 seconds go by without a joke, with the result that none of them are any good; there is no space whatsoever in the script). Also Porridge. Also Allo Allo, I think. There are a lot which have aged terribly mind (or perhaps weren't very good in the first place).
Even when sitcoms aren't uproariously funny any more, they provide a fascinating bit of social history. I got quite absorbed a year or two back by 'I Didn't Know You Cared' - a fascinating picture of 1970s Sheffield; not for the bits you were necessarily expected to laugh at, but at the background situations you were expected to take as read. Similarly, 'Chance in a Million' from the 80s (which is also genuinely still funny).
The first couple of seasons of HI-de-Hi with Simon Cadell are also massively underrated (the later seasons are total trash). I think Allo Allo follows the same pattern.
Allo' Allo' just went on too long. Interesting comment in the Blackadder programme last night about why there was no fitf
Maybe a dumb question but does anyone know how to stream live Channel 4 on an Android Smart TV? I want to put on the England game.
I've gone onto the 4 app and I can see categories of programmes but not a live option.
You have just missed a belter by TAA.
Thanks for that. 😅
Found a 'Freeview Play' app, thought it might be on that. No, still no live 4 shown it still just shows categories of programmes to stream.
Is your TV tuned in via the antenna??
No, its the 21st Century, I don't have an antenna I stream over the internet.
Your current difficulties may have exposed a flaw in that approach. Just a thought.
We keep our satellite dish and Sky box just for the free to air stuff even though we stopped paying for it years ago just in case there’s problems with the interwebs. And via that medium I am watching the game right now.
We’re 3-0 up BTW
We take Sky Glass, so all streamed. Live TV is a bit behind, so you can hear a wicket in the cricket, pour a whisky and head to the TV to see it live. It’s great though. All streaming services via one cable and remote - and could be cable and remote free too if I wanted. And yet. Last weekend the ‘live’ TV channels stopped working. Technical fault at Sky. It was Sunday morning so no buggy, but imagine if it had been the Ashes final session, or the World Cup final. So a definite weakness potentially.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
Lots of people do buy that lie. Rural rednecks used to vote Democrat, and LBJ made sure his Great Society programme worked for them as much as Urban Black Americans.
Republicans massively succeeded in getting poor people to vote to cut their social programmes to fund rich peoples tax cuts.
However Trump's message of tariffs on Chinese and German imports and cutting immigration also had practical appeal to them.
Economically Trump did not govern as a Goldwater or Reagan Republican either, indeed on economics he did not govern a million miles off of where Bill Clinton governed, except he was much more protectionist
The Times have published an article about Charlotte Owen's parentage.
Owen’s father, Michael, was a teacher who died two years ago aged 91 and her mother, Kathryn, 70, works for her brother’s forklift truck company. She often visits her mother at the family’s large modern detached home in upmarket Alderley Edge, Cheshire.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
Lots of people do buy that lie. Rural rednecks used to vote Democrat, and LBJ made sure his Great Society programme worked for them as much as Urban Black Americans.
Republicans massively succeeded in getting poor people to vote to cut their social programmes to fund rich peoples tax cuts.
However Trump's message of tariffs on Chinese and German imports and cutting immigration also had practical appeal to them.
Economically Trump did not govern as a Goldwater or Reagan Republican either, indeed on economics he did not govern a million miles off of where Bill Clinton governed, except he was much more protectionist
Rhetorical appeal, you mean. Biden is the president who has actually done the practical stuff.
The Times have published an article about Charlotte Owen's parentage.
Owen’s father, Michael, was a teacher who died two years ago aged 91 and her mother, Kathryn, 70, works for her brother’s forklift truck company. She often visits her mother at the family’s large modern detached home in upmarket Alderley Edge, Cheshire.
That's a fascinating story on Britain losing its telecoms lead due to anti-state dogma, Horse, although I'm not sure if all that language was quite called for.
It reminds me of an oft-told story I've often heard from a friend in computing. Britain was still pretty far ahead in the late '80s with machines like the Acorn Archimedes, largely due to the state-funded BBC Micro, which in turn had been hugely criticised at the time on the hoary old Thatcherite ideological grounds of the Dti "state picking winners". Result : no more state-funded projects like the BBC MIcro, and not that much later, most of the main parts of the British hardware computer industry had either left a long way behind, or bought out. Only Starmer shows any sign of knowing how to fix this failure of ideology in industrial policy in the long-term, unlike any of the other party leaders.
Most of that is simply not true. The Archimedes came out when it was already far too late to try and buck the "IBM compatible" standard
The failure to get out of the hobby machine space was the real problem, much earlier
So Sinclair didn't make a machine with a keyboard you could actually type on.
One company made an after market setup for the ZX-81 - a metal case, a bit like the BBC shape. Ventilation, space for the 16K RAM pack (on a cable to prevent wobble problems). The power supply was in the case, but in a separate, ventilated compartment. The external plug sockets on the case were robust.
Essentially they'd fixed nearly all the problems with the ZX-81. Even as a kid, I could see that.... Sinclair sued them, of course.
By a happy coincidence, someone has just launched a proper keyboard for the ZX81.
Describing the ZX-81 keyboard as unpleasant is simply not true. Describing it as a keyboard is marginal. A collection of buttons that occasionally acted as the presser intended, if operated really, really slowly, maybe?
As long as I could type `RANDOMIZE USR 1234` I was happy. See also `POKE 22,22` on a C64.
It's no wonder I've ended up working in IT.
And poor.
Before he went full MAGA, Scott Adams/Dilbert said a wise thing. He said if you want to know who has power in an organisation, ask them about the technical details of their PC. And if they know the answer, you know that they have no power at all...
(and yes, I know the difference between PEEK and POKE)
Personally as a patriotic Brit who loves this country, I am proud of the innovations we've made and some of the companies and institutions we created.
Were they perfect, heck no. But the Tories are only interested in selling them off to the lowest bidder and damaging our legacies.
The country that invented the train can't run one on time. The country that pioneered the sewage system has yearly droughts. The country that invented much of the mobile technology system can't even get a train to have a reliable phone signal.
We are on our arses, it is time we did something different. Let's figure out what works and what doesn't. This country is broken.
If only the Romans had thought of having a sewage system. If we weren’t “on our arses” so much then it would at least give the sewerage system some time to regroup however.
The Indus Valley civilisation had a very good sewage system more than a millennium before the Romans and two millennia before us.
Were you alive then? It would explain most of your very out of date views.
Well we know you weren't around to suffer the shit show that was the GPO or the nationalised rail network.
I can tell you that the shittiness coefficent rapidly increased on privatisation!
This just simply isn't true.
I was there! I had to make a lot of cross country journeys and the connections went to pot as the companies wouldn't cooperate,
Well we'll disagree then. My experience of the pre-privatisation railways was universally awful. It's gradually improved over the years since privatisation to 'rather disappointing'.
BR was simply managing delicne, to the point where “We’re getting there” was their slogan, and their service was a punch line in comedy sketches. Add to what we now see as oddities, such as everyone smoking, and It really was that bad.
What measures do you have for BR's poor service? As someone who used the railways frequently before and after privatisation, I don't see what has been an article of faith, that it was so very bad back then and so very much better today.
So let's take feelings and anecdotes out of this once and for all and tell me: what measures can you show me to prove that point?
Okay, I’ll start with the number of paggengers choosing to use the service.
Ugh, we've been over this one before. You need an explanatory framework for that. You know that there have been huge changes to the working and living patterns of this country, including whole industries being mothballed and other industries being created, that have changed where people work. And different patterns of home ownership. And different demographics of workers: more women in employment.
I'll see if I can dig out some average commute distances data out a bit later... need to go pick someone up (by car!) just now but feel free to continue putting forward your arguments for, I will look and respond later.
Correlation != causation
maybe commute distances got longer because railways became better instead of your argument that more people use railways because commute distances got longer.
I don't know which of those is true but both are equally likely as far as I can see.
I can commute from a greater distance because trains are better I will take a train because I commute further now
Will say as one who has commuted by train and used both nationalised br and privatised trains. I certainly wouldn't have even tried under br
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
I wouldn't vote for a wannabe fascist no matter how poor I was. And I have been really fucking poor at points in my life.
i don't buy your characterisation of the democrats as woke coastal elites. Some of them are. And they are the ones who get the attention of people who wants to paint them all the same colour. But it's not really a true picture, is it?
What is your point?
If you follow American media this is the picture being given to west Virginians. The democrats are obsessive woke weirdos who care more about Pride marches and trans topless freaks getting to dance on the White House lawn - and also Ukrainians - than they do about the very real poverty and problems here in WV
Meanwhile rural republicans can see the absolute mess of democrat run cities. The implosion of San Francisco. The crime in Chicago and NYC. They can also see the democrats tearing down statues. None lf it looks good from the perspective of Meadow Bridge WV
Is that a fair perception of the democrats? Yes and no. But that is the perception and it leads to a trump victory in this state
I’m not judging either party here
The parallels between somewhere like WV and the poorer rural bits of brexitland are obvious
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
True but they will never be sing “take me home, country roads to the place I belong, West Virginia Water mountain momma, take me home country roads.”
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
Yes that’s a classic example of where GDP per capita can be totally misleading
We take Sky Glass, so all streamed. Live TV is a bit behind, so you can hear a wicket in the cricket, pour a whisky and head to the TV to see it live. It’s great though. All streaming services via one cable and remote - and could be cable and remote free too if I wanted. And yet. Last weekend the ‘live’ TV channels stopped working. Technical fault at Sky. It was Sunday morning so no buggy, but imagine if it had been the Ashes final session, or the World Cup final. So a definite weakness potentially.
The main issue with Sky Glass is just the lack of recording, really. The "playlist" gubbins - basically a way of pointing you to the on-demand bit, when such a thing becomes available - isn't really an adequate replacement. It's not too bad if it's a Sky channel programme, it just appears (albeit unpredictably so), but otherwise it's irritating.
It is also a bit buggy in places, though generally it's all solved with a quick change-the-channel-and-back effort, or at worst a turn-it-off-and-on-again.
Other than that it's great, it saved me having to deal with a mahoosive tree which was steadily blocking the satellite signal and it was actually cheaper for me than the old contract for basically the same stuff.
Most of that is simply not true. The Archimedes came out when it was already far too late to try and buck the "IBM compatible" standard
The failure to get out of the hobby machine space was the real problem, much earlier
So Sinclair didn't make a machine with a keyboard you could actually type on.
No joke I recall that the first time I used a QL the spacebar, which must have pivoted or sunk beneath the case, nipped my finger.
I should add that even the QL's rubbish keyboard was approximately ten thousand times better than the crap used on the Spectrum and ZX80 and ZX81.
The first usable keyboard on a Sinclair was after they were bought by Amstrad. Yes, Alan Sugar *increased* the quality.
Yes, and for all the stick Sugar gets the CPC and PCW were pretty good ranges of computers.
Amstrad was the second largest pc manufacturer in Europe, after Olivetti.
But was never developed.
The British problem (which it shares with several other countries) is in not investing in product development and improvement. This is both a private sector and state problem.
I recall one “sage” attacking Dyson for making his own products obsolete by coming out with new and better versions.
Well, you have two choices
1) your product is made obsolete by another companies product. 2) your product is made obsolete by your next product.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
Yes that’s a classic example of where GDP per capita can be totally misleading
do it on a PPP (purchasing power parity) basis and you might be less misled
A ban on two-for-one junk food deals is set to be shelved as Rishi Sunak bows to Conservative concerns about the cost of living.
Ministers are preparing to delay the policy beyond the next election, effectively killing it for the foreseeable future.
However, Michael Gove and Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, are said to be attempting to use planning laws to fight obesity in the name of levelling up. Measures under consideration include restricting the opening of takeaways near schools.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, sees improving health in disadvantaged areas as key to his department’s mission, and Whitty is said to be “really keen on using the planning laws more forcefully” against obesity.
Comedy doesn't always age terribly well. I thought the Two Ronnies was funny in the 80s, but watching reruns it doesn't really work as well. No criticism of them - they are both funny men - but the material we find funny changes. I don't know why that should be so, but it does. It's not even that different generations find different things funny: things which are funny then are often just not funny now. Nothing to do with woke - just our collective tastes change. I guess something to do with humour being a defying of expectations; if you know the sort of thing to expect, maybe that takes away some of the humour. I still find them enjoyably clever sometimes, though (which is almost, but not quite, the same thing), like the Mastermind 'answering the previous question' specialist subject. And I find Ronnie Corbett's monologues funnier now than I did then. Monty Python, OTOH, I think has aged very well indeed and is almost as good now as it was back then.
Dad’s Army is still good. (I think, I haven’t seen an episode in about 20 years).
I saw an episode of It Ain’t Half Hot Mum about ten years ago and I thought it was actually pretty good, all things considered.
Sitcoms date OK, the good ones anyway.
Thinking about it, you're right - some sitcoms date rather better. I can confirm that Dad's Army is still good (indeed, weirdly, I'd say it's better now than it was 30 years ago. Perhaps the humour has passed through being slightly dated, if it ever was, and come through as antique.) I would also add Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads (though it's predecessor, from the 60s 'The Likely Lads' has aged terribly - it feels like the writers were terrified of letting 20 seconds go by without a joke, with the result that none of them are any good; there is no space whatsoever in the script). Also Porridge. Also Allo Allo, I think. There are a lot which have aged terribly mind (or perhaps weren't very good in the first place).
Even when sitcoms aren't uproariously funny any more, they provide a fascinating bit of social history. I got quite absorbed a year or two back by 'I Didn't Know You Cared' - a fascinating picture of 1970s Sheffield; not for the bits you were necessarily expected to laugh at, but at the background situations you were expected to take as read. Similarly, 'Chance in a Million' from the 80s (which is also genuinely still funny).
The first couple of seasons of HI-de-Hi with Simon Cadell are also massively underrated (the later seasons are total trash). I think Allo Allo follows the same pattern.
Allo' Allo' just went on too long. Interesting comment in the Blackadder programme last night about why there was no fitf
Maybe a dumb question but does anyone know how to stream live Channel 4 on an Android Smart TV? I want to put on the England game.
I've gone onto the 4 app and I can see categories of programmes but not a live option.
You have just missed a belter by TAA.
Thanks for that. 😅
Found a 'Freeview Play' app, thought it might be on that. No, still no live 4 shown it still just shows categories of programmes to stream.
Is your TV tuned in via the antenna??
No, its the 21st Century, I don't have an antenna I stream over the internet.
Your current difficulties may have exposed a flaw in that approach. Just a thought.
We keep our satellite dish and Sky box just for the free to air stuff even though we stopped paying for it years ago just in case there’s problems with the interwebs. And via that medium I am watching the game right now.
We’re 3-0 up BTW
We take Sky Glass, so all streamed. Live TV is a bit behind, so you can hear a wicket in the cricket, pour a whisky and head to the TV to see it live. It’s great though. All streaming services via one cable and remote - and could be cable and remote free too if I wanted. And yet. Last weekend the ‘live’ TV channels stopped working. Technical fault at Sky. It was Sunday morning so no buggy, but imagine if it had been the Ashes final session, or the World Cup final. So a definite weakness potentially.
My favourite TV show of the last 20 years is the Battlestar Galactica reboot. As a result I distrust over reliance on networked technology and hang on to obsolete kit for as long as possible, I’m in a good place for when a group of Tricia Helfer clones take over.
Most of that is simply not true. The Archimedes came out when it was already far too late to try and buck the "IBM compatible" standard
The failure to get out of the hobby machine space was the real problem, much earlier
So Sinclair didn't make a machine with a keyboard you could actually type on.
No joke I recall that the first time I used a QL the spacebar, which must have pivoted or sunk beneath the case, nipped my finger.
I should add that even the QL's rubbish keyboard was approximately ten thousand times better than the crap used on the Spectrum and ZX80 and ZX81.
The first usable keyboard on a Sinclair was after they were bought by Amstrad. Yes, Alan Sugar *increased* the quality.
Yes, and for all the stick Sugar gets the CPC and PCW were pretty good ranges of computers.
Amstrad was the second largest pc manufacturer in Europe, after Olivetti.
But was never developed.
The British problem (which it shares with several other countries) is in not investing in product development and improvement. This is both a private sector and state problem.
I recall one “sage” attacking Dyson for making his own products obsolete by coming out with new and better versions.
Well, you have two choices
1) your product is made obsolete by another companies product. 2) your product is made obsolete by your next product.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
Yes that’s a classic example of where GDP per capita can be totally misleading
do it on a PPP (purchasing power parity) basis and you might be less misled
I’m actually surprised WV is the second poorest state in the Union. I’d have guessed Louisiana and Alabama are considerably poorer
The poverty in some corners of Louisiana is numbingly grim
The Times have published an article about Charlotte Owen's parentage.
Owen’s father, Michael, was a teacher who died two years ago aged 91 and her mother, Kathryn, 70, works for her brother’s forklift truck company. She often visits her mother at the family’s large modern detached home in upmarket Alderley Edge, Cheshire.
Most of that is simply not true. The Archimedes came out when it was already far too late to try and buck the "IBM compatible" standard
The failure to get out of the hobby machine space was the real problem, much earlier
So Sinclair didn't make a machine with a keyboard you could actually type on.
No joke I recall that the first time I used a QL the spacebar, which must have pivoted or sunk beneath the case, nipped my finger.
I should add that even the QL's rubbish keyboard was approximately ten thousand times better than the crap used on the Spectrum and ZX80 and ZX81.
The first usable keyboard on a Sinclair was after they were bought by Amstrad. Yes, Alan Sugar *increased* the quality.
Yes, and for all the stick Sugar gets the CPC and PCW were pretty good ranges of computers.
Amstrad was the second largest pc manufacturer in Europe, after Olivetti.
But was never developed.
No, and that is probably the fair complaint about Alan Sugar, not that he was a barrow-boy or spiv but that he had a series of ground-breaking ideas and insights that ultimately went nowhere through lack of R&D. Even that might be unfair since where are all the others from that era?
We take Sky Glass, so all streamed. Live TV is a bit behind, so you can hear a wicket in the cricket, pour a whisky and head to the TV to see it live. It’s great though. All streaming services via one cable and remote - and could be cable and remote free too if I wanted. And yet. Last weekend the ‘live’ TV channels stopped working. Technical fault at Sky. It was Sunday morning so no buggy, but imagine if it had been the Ashes final session, or the World Cup final. So a definite weakness potentially.
The main issue with Sky Glass is just the lack of recording, really. The "playlist" gubbins - basically a way of pointing you to the on-demand bit, when such a thing becomes available - isn't really an adequate replacement. It's not too bad if it's a Sky channel programme, it just appears (albeit unpredictably so), but otherwise it's irritating.
It is also a bit buggy in places, though generally it's all solved with a quick change-the-channel-and-back effort, or at worst a turn-it-off-and-on-again.
Other than that it's great, it saved me having to deal with a mahoosive tree which was steadily blocking the satellite signal and it was actually cheaper for me than the old contract for basically the same stuff.
I tend to agree re the glitches etc. I find live TV such as BBC breakfast is oddly poorly synched with sound and mouths of people speaking. Not an issue on non live Tv. It was a revelation to get rid of sky box, fire stick etc and go to an internet cable and remote and that’s it. I agree re lack of recording. I preferred the old Sky+ approach for that. It caught me out with the Womens Rugby WC which despite being on my play list, wasn’t acailabke until much later in the day. Sky+ would have been.
A ban on two-for-one junk food deals is set to be shelved as Rishi Sunak bows to Conservative concerns about the cost of living.
Ministers are preparing to delay the policy beyond the next election, effectively killing it for the foreseeable future.
However, Michael Gove and Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, are said to be attempting to use planning laws to fight obesity in the name of levelling up. Measures under consideration include restricting the opening of takeaways near schools.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, sees improving health in disadvantaged areas as key to his department’s mission, and Whitty is said to be “really keen on using the planning laws more forcefully” against obesity.
Quite right, scrapping 2 for one junk food deals may be no problem in Hampstead but given the current high cost of living it would go down like a lead balloon in the redwall
Personally as a patriotic Brit who loves this country, I am proud of the innovations we've made and some of the companies and institutions we created.
Were they perfect, heck no. But the Tories are only interested in selling them off to the lowest bidder and damaging our legacies.
The country that invented the train can't run one on time. The country that pioneered the sewage system has yearly droughts. The country that invented much of the mobile technology system can't even get a train to have a reliable phone signal.
We are on our arses, it is time we did something different. Let's figure out what works and what doesn't. This country is broken.
If only the Romans had thought of having a sewage system. If we weren’t “on our arses” so much then it would at least give the sewerage system some time to regroup however.
The Indus Valley civilisation had a very good sewage system more than a millennium before the Romans and two millennia before us.
Were you alive then? It would explain most of your very out of date views.
Well we know you weren't around to suffer the shit show that was the GPO or the nationalised rail network.
I can tell you that the shittiness coefficent rapidly increased on privatisation!
Nah. On every measure - safety, comfort, time keeping, rolling stock, investment and choice the system got better as a result of privatisation.
Much of it as a result of proghrammes initiated by BR. Hatfield and the ensuing crisis was very much down to privatisation, a huge systemic disaster.
I was there, and the service went downhill. It did pick up eventually, but only becauyse of the natural trajectory of technology.
West Virginia was one of only 10 states to vote for the Democrats at the 1988 election, and one of 6 in 1980.
Iowa also voted for Dukakis in 1988 but like West Virginia for Trump in 2020.
California and New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois voted for Bush Snr in 1988 but strongly for Biden in 2020.
Yet another example of the trend here and across the western world ie the upper middle class and graduates getting more left liberal and the white working class more conservative
Most of that is simply not true. The Archimedes came out when it was already far too late to try and buck the "IBM compatible" standard
The failure to get out of the hobby machine space was the real problem, much earlier
So Sinclair didn't make a machine with a keyboard you could actually type on.
No joke I recall that the first time I used a QL the spacebar, which must have pivoted or sunk beneath the case, nipped my finger.
I should add that even the QL's rubbish keyboard was approximately ten thousand times better than the crap used on the Spectrum and ZX80 and ZX81.
The first usable keyboard on a Sinclair was after they were bought by Amstrad. Yes, Alan Sugar *increased* the quality.
Yes, and for all the stick Sugar gets the CPC and PCW were pretty good ranges of computers.
Amstrad was the second largest pc manufacturer in Europe, after Olivetti.
But was never developed.
No, and that is probably the fair complaint about Alan Sugar, not that he was a barrow-boy or spiv but that he had a series of ground-breaking ideas and insights that ultimately went nowhere through lack of R&D. Even that might be unfair since where are all the others from that era?
See my post upthread. Britain’s electronics industry self immolated.
West Virginia was one of only 10 states to vote for the Democrats at the 1988 election, and one of 6 in 1980.
West Virginia broke away from Virginia in 1863 over the slavery question. Virginia was part of the Confederacy.
Yes. Slavery never really happened here. Not the right land for big plantations. The settlers were poor, determined individualists. It is very very different to Virginia
A ban on two-for-one junk food deals is set to be shelved as Rishi Sunak bows to Conservative concerns about the cost of living.
Ministers are preparing to delay the policy beyond the next election, effectively killing it for the foreseeable future.
However, Michael Gove and Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, are said to be attempting to use planning laws to fight obesity in the name of levelling up. Measures under consideration include restricting the opening of takeaways near schools.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, sees improving health in disadvantaged areas as key to his department’s mission, and Whitty is said to be “really keen on using the planning laws more forcefully” against obesity.
There was a recent film (Spielberg, Streep, Hanks etc) about the Washington Post's publication of the Pentagon Papers. Trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrXlY6gzTTM
Personally as a patriotic Brit who loves this country, I am proud of the innovations we've made and some of the companies and institutions we created.
Were they perfect, heck no. But the Tories are only interested in selling them off to the lowest bidder and damaging our legacies.
The country that invented the train can't run one on time. The country that pioneered the sewage system has yearly droughts. The country that invented much of the mobile technology system can't even get a train to have a reliable phone signal.
We are on our arses, it is time we did something different. Let's figure out what works and what doesn't. This country is broken.
If only the Romans had thought of having a sewage system. If we weren’t “on our arses” so much then it would at least give the sewerage system some time to regroup however.
The Indus Valley civilisation had a very good sewage system more than a millennium before the Romans and two millennia before us.
Were you alive then? It would explain most of your very out of date views.
Well we know you weren't around to suffer the shit show that was the GPO or the nationalised rail network.
I can tell you that the shittiness coefficent rapidly increased on privatisation!
Nah. On every measure - safety, comfort, time keeping, rolling stock, investment and choice the system got better as a result of privatisation.
Much of it as a result of proghrammes initiated by BR. Hatfield and the ensuing crisis was very much down to privatisation, a huge systemic disaster.
I was there, and the service went downhill. It did pick up eventually, but only becauyse of the natural trajectory of technology.
I was there too and using the railways continuously. They were shit prior to privatisation and git better very rapidly. And the numbers on safety speak for themselves. Accidents and associated deaths all drop rapidly in the years following privatisation.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
Average house price in WV though just is $154,979.
I was there too and using the railways continuously. They were shit prior to privatisation and git better very rapidly. And the numbers on safety speak for themselves. Accidents and associated deaths all drop rapidly in the years following privatisation.
You're ideologically blind Richard. I am now starting to understand why you backed Brexit.
Personally as a patriotic Brit who loves this country, I am proud of the innovations we've made and some of the companies and institutions we created.
Were they perfect, heck no. But the Tories are only interested in selling them off to the lowest bidder and damaging our legacies.
The country that invented the train can't run one on time. The country that pioneered the sewage system has yearly droughts. The country that invented much of the mobile technology system can't even get a train to have a reliable phone signal.
We are on our arses, it is time we did something different. Let's figure out what works and what doesn't. This country is broken.
If only the Romans had thought of having a sewage system. If we weren’t “on our arses” so much then it would at least give the sewerage system some time to regroup however.
The Indus Valley civilisation had a very good sewage system more than a millennium before the Romans and two millennia before us.
Were you alive then? It would explain most of your very out of date views.
Well we know you weren't around to suffer the shit show that was the GPO or the nationalised rail network.
I can tell you that the shittiness coefficent rapidly increased on privatisation!
Nah. On every measure - safety, comfort, time keeping, rolling stock, investment and choice the system got better as a result of privatisation.
Much of it as a result of proghrammes initiated by BR. Hatfield and the ensuing crisis was very much down to privatisation, a huge systemic disaster.
I was there, and the service went downhill. It did pick up eventually, but only becauyse of the natural trajectory of technology.
I was there too and using the railways continuously. They were shit prior to privatisation and git better very rapidly. And the numbers on safety speak for themselves. Accidents and associated deaths all drop rapidly in the years following privatisation.
Why might that have been so? Could it be that the behemoth was a law to itself without liability or scrutiny? A bit like the Post Office and the sub-postmasters?
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
Yes that’s a classic example of where GDP per capita can be totally misleading
do it on a PPP (purchasing power parity) basis and you might be less misled
True, but I think that's only part of it. There are a number of other factors that explain why we shouldn't fixate so much on why American GDP/head is rather higher (say 50%) than ours:
- knock off about 16% of the difference (i.e. eight percentage points) for wasteful health spending. America spends about 18% of its GDP on health, compared with 10% here, but has considerably lower life expectancy - knock off another 30% of that difference because Americans work more than 10% longer hours than we do, 47 per week rather than 42 - discount another 15-20% of the difference because America's income distribution is more skewed towards the wealthy than ours - finally, another 30% is accounted for by the strength of the dollar since 2015.
In addition, as Bob Gordon has argued, the cost of living in some ways is much higher there, even allowing for exchange rates. You are much more likely to need a car, and most houses need air conditioning as well as heating, which is a huge extra expense for families.
So, really American living standards for the vast majority probably aren't that different from here.
Otoh, and this is a huge factor, houses are generally bigger for the same amount of money - a massive self-inflicted wound on our part, I'm afraid.
I was there too and using the railways continuously. They were shit prior to privatisation and git better very rapidly. And the numbers on safety speak for themselves. Accidents and associated deaths all drop rapidly in the years following privatisation.
You're ideologically blind Richard. I am now starting to understand why you backed Brexit.
And yet you are unable to counter any of facts and data I have used. I begin to understand why you backed Remain. And lost.
A ban on two-for-one junk food deals is set to be shelved as Rishi Sunak bows to Conservative concerns about the cost of living.
Ministers are preparing to delay the policy beyond the next election, effectively killing it for the foreseeable future.
However, Michael Gove and Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, are said to be attempting to use planning laws to fight obesity in the name of levelling up. Measures under consideration include restricting the opening of takeaways near schools.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, sees improving health in disadvantaged areas as key to his department’s mission, and Whitty is said to be “really keen on using the planning laws more forcefully” against obesity.
Good in this case that he has, ridiculous nannying, but even when Boris bestrode the party and parliament like a colossos the government was weirdly timid with its huge majority. I can only think of one thing they really seemed to ram through with it, and they seem to have spent most time since then saying they didn't want to do it.
Jamie Raskin asks FBI Director Christopher Wray to put all of the non-classified info he & Oversight Chairman James Comer received from their FBI briefing about the FD 1023 at the center of alleged Biden bribery scheme in writing for everyone to see https://twitter.com/AnnieGrayerCNN/status/1669793761314873349
They’ve been bullshitting about this for years now.
I was there too and using the railways continuously. They were shit prior to privatisation and git better very rapidly. And the numbers on safety speak for themselves. Accidents and associated deaths all drop rapidly in the years following privatisation.
You're ideologically blind Richard. I am now starting to understand why you backed Brexit.
And yet you are unable to counter any of facts and data I have used. I begin to understand why you backed Remain. And lost.
You never responded to any of the points I made - and I made them first. Mate.
Personally as a patriotic Brit who loves this country, I am proud of the innovations we've made and some of the companies and institutions we created.
Were they perfect, heck no. But the Tories are only interested in selling them off to the lowest bidder and damaging our legacies.
The country that invented the train can't run one on time. The country that pioneered the sewage system has yearly droughts. The country that invented much of the mobile technology system can't even get a train to have a reliable phone signal.
We are on our arses, it is time we did something different. Let's figure out what works and what doesn't. This country is broken.
If only the Romans had thought of having a sewage system. If we weren’t “on our arses” so much then it would at least give the sewerage system some time to regroup however.
The Indus Valley civilisation had a very good sewage system more than a millennium before the Romans and two millennia before us.
Were you alive then? It would explain most of your very out of date views.
Well we know you weren't around to suffer the shit show that was the GPO or the nationalised rail network.
I can tell you that the shittiness coefficent rapidly increased on privatisation!
Nah. On every measure - safety, comfort, time keeping, rolling stock, investment and choice the system got better as a result of privatisation.
Much of it as a result of proghrammes initiated by BR. Hatfield and the ensuing crisis was very much down to privatisation, a huge systemic disaster.
I was there, and the service went downhill. It did pick up eventually, but only becauyse of the natural trajectory of technology.
I was there too and using the railways continuously. They were shit prior to privatisation and git better very rapidly. And the numbers on safety speak for themselves. Accidents and associated deaths all drop rapidly in the years following privatisation.
Why might that have been so? Could it be that the behemoth was a law to itself without liability or scrutiny? A bit like the Post Office and the sub-postmasters?
Yes, very much so. Aka Producer Interest.
There was also the enshrined belief that the nationalised industries were part of the state and so could use the power of the state to protect themselves.
I remember when, under Fatcher, they rolled back use of Sovereign Immunity to great outcry. This had been used in the NHS and elsewhere to give virtual legal immunity.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
Yes that’s a classic example of where GDP per capita can be totally misleading
do it on a PPP (purchasing power parity) basis and you might be less misled
True, but I think that's only part of it. There are a number of other factors that explain why we shouldn't fixate so much on why American GDP/head is rather higher (say 50%) than ours:
- knock off about 16% of the difference (i.e. eight percentage points) for wasteful health spending. America spends about 18% of its GDP on health, compared with 10% here, but has considerably lower life expectancy - knock off another 30% of that difference because Americans work more than 10% longer hours than we do, 47 per week rather than 42 - discount another 15-20% of the difference because America's income distribution is more skewed towards the wealthy than ours - finally, another 30% is accounted for by the strength of the dollar since 2015.
In addition, as Bob Gordon has argued, the cost of living in some ways is much higher there, even allowing for exchange rates. You are much more likely to need a car, and most houses need air conditioning as well as heating, which is a huge extra expense for families.
So, really American living standards for the vast majority probably aren't that different from here.
Otoh, and this is a huge factor, houses are generally bigger for the same amount of money - a massive self-inflicted wound on our part, I'm afraid.
All valid points, though the numbers you put on them might be disputed. … Ah, Bob Gordon! A name that used to loom large for students of our subject. … Those were the days
A ban on two-for-one junk food deals is set to be shelved as Rishi Sunak bows to Conservative concerns about the cost of living.
Ministers are preparing to delay the policy beyond the next election, effectively killing it for the foreseeable future.
However, Michael Gove and Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, are said to be attempting to use planning laws to fight obesity in the name of levelling up. Measures under consideration include restricting the opening of takeaways near schools.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, sees improving health in disadvantaged areas as key to his department’s mission, and Whitty is said to be “really keen on using the planning laws more forcefully” against obesity.
Good in this case that he has, ridiculous nannying, but even when Boris bestrode the party and parliament like a colossos the government was weirdly timid with its huge majority. I can only think of one thing they really seemed to ram through with it, and they seem to have spent most time since then saying they didn't want to do it.
Chris Whitty can fuck right off, mind. How does that man still have a job?
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
Average house price in WV though just is $154,979.
Personally as a patriotic Brit who loves this country, I am proud of the innovations we've made and some of the companies and institutions we created.
Were they perfect, heck no. But the Tories are only interested in selling them off to the lowest bidder and damaging our legacies.
The country that invented the train can't run one on time. The country that pioneered the sewage system has yearly droughts. The country that invented much of the mobile technology system can't even get a train to have a reliable phone signal.
We are on our arses, it is time we did something different. Let's figure out what works and what doesn't. This country is broken.
If only the Romans had thought of having a sewage system. If we weren’t “on our arses” so much then it would at least give the sewerage system some time to regroup however.
The Indus Valley civilisation had a very good sewage system more than a millennium before the Romans and two millennia before us.
Were you alive then? It would explain most of your very out of date views.
Well we know you weren't around to suffer the shit show that was the GPO or the nationalised rail network.
I can tell you that the shittiness coefficent rapidly increased on privatisation!
Nah. On every measure - safety, comfort, time keeping, rolling stock, investment and choice the system got better as a result of privatisation.
Much of it as a result of proghrammes initiated by BR. Hatfield and the ensuing crisis was very much down to privatisation, a huge systemic disaster.
I was there, and the service went downhill. It did pick up eventually, but only becauyse of the natural trajectory of technology.
I was there too and using the railways continuously. They were shit prior to privatisation and git better very rapidly. And the numbers on safety speak for themselves. Accidents and associated deaths all drop rapidly in the years following privatisation.
Why might that have been so? Could it be that the behemoth was a law to itself without liability or scrutiny? A bit like the Post Office and the sub-postmasters?
Yes, very much so. Aka Producer Interest.
There was also the enshrined belief that the nationalised industries were part of the state and so could use the power of the state to protect themselves.
I remember when, under Fatcher, they rolled back use of Crown Immunity to great outcry. This had been used in the various government organisations to give virtual immunity to prosecution
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
Average house price in WV though just is $154,979.
Americans may earn more than almost everywhere in the UK on average but Brits often still have more wealth once you include the value of their house
What good does that do them though? If they earn more AND house prices are lower they have far more disposable income. Wealth does you no good if you can't spend it.
Personally as a patriotic Brit who loves this country, I am proud of the innovations we've made and some of the companies and institutions we created.
Were they perfect, heck no. But the Tories are only interested in selling them off to the lowest bidder and damaging our legacies.
The country that invented the train can't run one on time. The country that pioneered the sewage system has yearly droughts. The country that invented much of the mobile technology system can't even get a train to have a reliable phone signal.
We are on our arses, it is time we did something different. Let's figure out what works and what doesn't. This country is broken.
If only the Romans had thought of having a sewage system. If we weren’t “on our arses” so much then it would at least give the sewerage system some time to regroup however.
The Indus Valley civilisation had a very good sewage system more than a millennium before the Romans and two millennia before us.
Were you alive then? It would explain most of your very out of date views.
Well we know you weren't around to suffer the shit show that was the GPO or the nationalised rail network.
I can tell you that the shittiness coefficent rapidly increased on privatisation!
Nah. On every measure - safety, comfort, time keeping, rolling stock, investment and choice the system got better as a result of privatisation.
Much of it as a result of proghrammes initiated by BR. Hatfield and the ensuing crisis was very much down to privatisation, a huge systemic disaster.
I was there, and the service went downhill. It did pick up eventually, but only becauyse of the natural trajectory of technology.
I was there too and using the railways continuously. They were shit prior to privatisation and git better very rapidly. And the numbers on safety speak for themselves. Accidents and associated deaths all drop rapidly in the years following privatisation.
Why might that have been so? Could it be that the behemoth was a law to itself without liability or scrutiny? A bit like the Post Office and the sub-postmasters?
Yes, very much so. Aka Producer Interest.
There was also the enshrined belief that the nationalised industries were part of the state and so could use the power of the state to protect themselves.
I remember when, under Fatcher, they rolled back use of Sovereign Immunity to great outcry. This had been used in the NHS and elsewhere to give virtual legal immunity.
Crown indemnity means that individual practitioners are covered by compulsory insurance from the Trust they work for. That insurance pays out if an individual is successfully sued for NHS work. It does not mean they are immune legally or professionally. They can be and are disciplined if found to be negligent.
Resolution is the NHS organisation and pays out vast sums annually, and Trust premiums vary by how risky they are perceived to be.
West Virginia is rather beautiful and quite noticeably poor
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Only if you swallow the lie that Trump would actually make a positive difference for these people.
I’m not buying Trump’s nonsense but I am saying if you lived out here you would likely despise the democrat woke elites on the coast - and trump would be your only alternative
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Factoids:
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi *West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states *It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London *I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
Average house price in WV though just is $154,979.
Americans may earn more than almost everywhere in the UK on average but Brits often still have more wealth once you include the value of their house
Yes but wealth locked up in bricks and mortar is not a lot of use when you are queueing at Tescos or the Virginian equivalent.
More to the point, when you unlock that money, it goes a lot further in rural America than in much of the U.K.
One constant thing i hear from first generation immigrants in the U.K. - everyone told them about the salaries. No one told them about the cost of living.
I was there too and using the railways continuously. They were shit prior to privatisation and git better very rapidly. And the numbers on safety speak for themselves. Accidents and associated deaths all drop rapidly in the years following privatisation.
You're ideologically blind Richard. I am now starting to understand why you backed Brexit.
And yet you are unable to counter any of facts and data I have used. I begin to understand why you backed Remain. And lost.
You never responded to any of the points I made - and I made them first. Mate.
As I said, your points were pointless. Much like everything else you post on here.
Comments
Perhaps it would have been left behind eventually, but the whole approach to long-term industrial investment at this time, across many, many sectors, was completely wrong.
And I get graphs. So that's the main thing.
Not an unusual response though, for a lot of people it is a shortlived effect, and nausea a side effect.
This is where I bought my Sam Adams lager
It’s brilliant. I love the lost backwoods of America. The garage also sold “Amish snacks”. And there are people living here in actual shacks
The Trump vote is not hard to understand out here
Fortunately we have some proper sport next week at Ascot - the best five days of horse racing in the entire year. An element of England vs Australia in the King's Stand on the opening day.
Omnisis and Techne both showing a renewed extension of the Labour lead. Omnisis continues to show the largest share for Labour at 48% and a 17% swing from the Conservatives while Techne weighs in with a more restrained 14% move.
Last night's by-elections were mainly in seats countermanded from May and these tidied up LD control of Surrey Heath and confirmed Independent control of West Devon.
Somewhat related - at work we still have some Transputers in a cupboard. Happy days.
West Virginia is easily amongst the ten poorest states in the US; it also has a long tradition of rebellious defiance
But look at this river (inside America’s newest national park btw)
Gorgeous
Republicans massively succeeded in getting poor people to vote to cut their social programmes to fund rich peoples tax cuts.
It sold homemade “sweet Allegheny West Virginia mustard” next to the root beer and condoms and I bought a jar. $4. Might be brilliant might be hideous. Adore stuff like that. You don’t get it in Shell gas stations
It all may depend on one's ideological preference, ofcourse, but I didn't see any great improvement in service, that I can remember.
We keep our satellite dish and Sky box just for the free to air stuff even though we stopped paying for it years ago just in case there’s problems with the interwebs. And via that medium I am watching the game right now.
We’re 3-0 up BTW
BT in public hands was the shittiest experience you can imagine. You want to go back there then you can fuck off.
Our challenge essentially ended thanks to a series of disastrous takeovers at the end of the last century.
Ferranti’s purchase of the fraudulent US company International Signal and Control in 1987 bust it within five years.
The behemoth (at one point quarter of a million employees) GEC swallowed Plessey, and after selling its defence business to British Aerospace, bought the US telecoms and internet equipment companies FORE and RELTEC for vastly inflated prices in 1999, crippling itself in the process. Ericsson bought most of what was left.
Racal spawned the highly successful Racal Vodaphone - but separated that from the manufacturing business, which was again ended up being sold off largely to European competitors.
Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/rail-factsheet-2022/rail-factsheet-2022
*West Virginia is the second poorest state in the Union by per capita GDP, after Mississippi
*West Virginia's per capita GDP is also higher than that of all but fifteen of the world's sovereign states
*It's above ours, and greatly in excess of that of any individual UK region except London
*I am, nonetheless, reasonably confident that the average inhabitant of the Home Counties has a better standard of living than the average West Virginian. Statistics only tell you so much
It’s great though. All streaming services via one cable and remote - and could be cable and remote free too if I wanted.
And yet.
Last weekend the ‘live’ TV channels stopped working. Technical fault at Sky. It was Sunday morning so no buggy, but imagine if it had been the Ashes final session, or the World Cup final.
So a definite weakness potentially.
Economically Trump did not govern as a Goldwater or Reagan Republican either, indeed on economics he did not govern a million miles off of where Bill Clinton governed, except he was much more protectionist
Owen’s father, Michael, was a teacher who died two years ago aged 91 and her mother, Kathryn, 70, works for her brother’s forklift truck company. She often visits her mother at the family’s large modern detached home in upmarket Alderley Edge, Cheshire.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/boris-johnson-charlotte-owen-honours-list-peerage-z2hwrmpxt
Another little theory to be filed under Twitter bollocks.
Biden is the president who has actually done the practical stuff.
See also "Nads", and Jennifer Arcuri.
I never said I wanted BT to be re-nationalised, as usual certain people didn't actually read the post.
(and yes, I know the difference between PEEK and POKE)
maybe commute distances got longer because railways became better instead of your argument that more people use railways because commute distances got longer.
I don't know which of those is true but both are equally likely as far as I can see.
I can commute from a greater distance because trains are better
I will take a train because I commute further now
Will say as one who has commuted by train and used both nationalised br and privatised trains. I certainly wouldn't have even tried under br
If you follow American media this is the picture being given to west Virginians. The democrats are obsessive woke weirdos who care more about Pride marches and trans topless freaks getting to dance on the White House lawn - and also Ukrainians - than they do about the very real poverty and problems here in WV
Meanwhile rural republicans can see the absolute mess of democrat run cities. The implosion of San Francisco. The crime in Chicago and NYC. They can also see the democrats tearing down statues. None lf it looks good from the perspective of Meadow Bridge WV
Is that a fair perception of the democrats? Yes and no. But that is the perception and it leads to a trump victory in this state
I’m not judging either party here
The parallels between somewhere like WV and the poorer rural bits of brexitland are obvious
It is also a bit buggy in places, though generally it's all solved with a quick change-the-channel-and-back effort, or at worst a turn-it-off-and-on-again.
Other than that it's great, it saved me having to deal with a mahoosive tree which was steadily blocking the satellite signal and it was actually cheaper for me than the old contract for basically the same stuff.
I recall one “sage” attacking Dyson for making his own products obsolete by coming out with new and better versions.
Well, you have two choices
1) your product is made obsolete by another companies product.
2) your product is made obsolete by your next product.
A ban on two-for-one junk food deals is set to be shelved as Rishi Sunak bows to Conservative concerns about the cost of living.
Ministers are preparing to delay the policy beyond the next election, effectively killing it for the foreseeable future.
However, Michael Gove and Sir Chris Whitty, the chief medical officer for England, are said to be attempting to use planning laws to fight obesity in the name of levelling up. Measures under consideration include restricting the opening of takeaways near schools.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, sees improving health in disadvantaged areas as key to his department’s mission, and Whitty is said to be “really keen on using the planning laws more forcefully” against obesity.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-shelves-ban-on-junk-food-deals-73npxl5d5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator's_Dilemma
The poverty in some corners of Louisiana is numbingly grim
It was a revelation to get rid of sky box, fire stick etc and go to an internet cable and remote and that’s it.
I agree re lack of recording. I preferred the old Sky+ approach for that. It caught me out with the Womens Rugby WC which despite being on my play list, wasn’t acailabke until much later in the day. Sky+ would have been.
I was there, and the service went downhill. It did pick up eventually, but only becauyse of the natural trajectory of technology.
California and New Jersey, Connecticut and Illinois voted for Bush Snr in 1988 but strongly for Biden in 2020.
Yet another example of the trend here and across the western world ie the upper middle class and graduates getting more left liberal and the white working class more conservative
Britain’s electronics industry self immolated.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-65932944
Good piece here.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/06/daniel-ellsberg-dead-pentagon-papers-vietnam-war.html
And now, onwards to the capital. To Charleston!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrXlY6gzTTM
Neither is popular there.
Average house price in Surrey £655,580.
https://www.zillow.com/home-values/61/wv/
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-prices-in-Surrey.html
Americans may earn more than almost everywhere in the UK on average but Brits often still have more wealth once you include the value of their house
- knock off about 16% of the difference (i.e. eight percentage points) for wasteful health spending. America spends about 18% of its GDP on health, compared with 10% here, but has considerably lower life expectancy
- knock off another 30% of that difference because Americans work more than 10% longer hours than we do, 47 per week rather than 42
- discount another 15-20% of the difference because America's income distribution is more skewed towards the wealthy than ours
- finally, another 30% is accounted for by the strength of the dollar since 2015.
In addition, as Bob Gordon has argued, the cost of living in some ways is much higher there, even allowing for exchange rates. You are much more likely to need a car, and most houses need air conditioning as well as heating, which is a huge extra expense for families.
So, really American living standards for the vast majority probably aren't that different from here.
Otoh, and this is a huge factor, houses are generally bigger for the same amount of money - a massive self-inflicted wound on our part, I'm afraid.
Almost still shines’: 3,000-year-old sword unearthed in Germany
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/16/till-shines-3300-year-old-sword-found-in-germany-bronze-age-grave-bavaria
Jamie Raskin asks FBI Director Christopher Wray to put all of the non-classified info he & Oversight Chairman James Comer received from their FBI briefing about the FD 1023 at the center of alleged Biden bribery scheme in writing for everyone to see
https://twitter.com/AnnieGrayerCNN/status/1669793761314873349
They’ve been bullshitting about this for years now.
There was also the enshrined belief that the nationalised industries were part of the state and so could use the power of the state to protect themselves.
I remember when, under Fatcher, they rolled back use of Sovereign Immunity to great outcry. This had been used in the NHS and elsewhere to give virtual legal immunity.
There was also the enshrined belief that the nationalised industries were part of the state and so could use the power of the state to protect themselves.
I remember when, under Fatcher, they rolled back use of Crown Immunity to great outcry. This had been used in the various government organisations to give virtual immunity to prosecution
Resolution is the NHS organisation and pays out vast sums annually, and Trust premiums vary by how risky they are perceived to be.
https://resolution.nhs.uk/resources/clinical-negligence-scheme-for-trusts-cnst-rules/
"Privatisation of utility monopolies has been disastrous."
So it has been disastrous but you don't want to renationalise? Another pointless argument from you then.
One constant thing i hear from first generation immigrants in the U.K. - everyone told them about the salaries. No one told them about the cost of living.