Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Lesson - If you want to dominate an industry - yes, line up the government, the unions and the other manufacturers. But it really, really helps to build some actual product.
I guess CCS will become the European standard though? Bit of a pain, it would have been good to have agreed a global standard.
Fortunately we don't have to align with the eu standard for uk bound cars....oh my a brexit benefit
So that's a benefit? There are three accepted aligned standards, North America, the EU and the Asian Pacific. Why would we want to plough our own furrow unless we are thinking of reintroducing the Morris Minor Traveller for the full 1950s effect?
From what I understand and no expert here just going by what people on here have said. Tesla is a better charging system.....who said anything about plowing our own furrow. Adapt the best charging system and people who want to drive their car abroad can get an adapter. The number of cars driven abroad are going to be a minority
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
Is ChatGPT better at translating than Google Translate?
Yes, according to several tests
However there are dedicated machine translation models which are, apparently, better than ChatGPT4. And they all keep improving. It is one area where they will completely master the job, to all intents and purposes
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
Perhaps for cities things are different but for towns (not rural) I'd challenge a lot of your assumptions.
Firstly efficiency, cars are an extremely efficient mode of transportation. Cars moving at 30 mph can move a lot more people through an area than bikes or other modes can do so while travelling much slower.
However its certainly possible to redesign things to allow more space for bikes, despite those being so much less efficient.
The road my kids school is off was until recently the local A-road to Liverpool, it had 2 lanes heading to Liverpool (1 away from it) at 30mph.
A dual carriageway recently opened which bypasses the town and so now cars can travel on the new A-road at 50mph.
The old A-road is now for local traffic only, 20mph and has 1 lane each way and a dedicated cycle path with a barrier between the cycle path and the cars.
As a result of this redesign, now more kids are riding their bike to school, which is good for them. Many fewer people are going through the road than before, as bike paths are so much less efficient than cars, but cars travelling a distance are going faster by using the dedicated dual carriageway instead.
So by sprawling out the cars can go faster and we can have dedicated bike paths too, win-win.
This does of course require the use of more space to create the extra dual-carriageway, but a lot of towns have extra space available around them, if only the political will can be found to actually use that space and spread the town out rather than trying to cram everything into a limited space.
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
Self driving cars are on their way and no amount of pedestrians on zebra crossings are going to stop them!
I do wonder what happens with those rising bollard thingies. Or neds on escooters. Pity we don't have deodand in Scots law.
You may recall that I've been banging on about the difference between syntactic and semantic information (the phenomena we observe and the meaning we put on it), and about how people don't believe statistics until you produce a story to go with it
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
So we're puzzled.
In the two YouTubes below, we have two reasonably intelligent people trying to explain the phenomenon. They settle on stories - "we have antibiotics so the need for inflammation is reduced" or "we live in heated houses", although one vid debunks them. There are other possible explanations - there may be a change in the mix of people measured, the measurements may be in differently temperatured places - but that's just me imposing a story on the phenom. People will continue to be a bit upset until a consensus story emerges, and then we'll go onto the next puzzle.
I've noticed you talking a lot recently about the difference between syntactic and semantic information, but I hadn't constructed a narrative that explained why you were doing that.
On buses and cars in this Seattle area: Down in Silicon Valley, large companies provided, and may still provide, for all I know, private bus services. So a worker could live in San Francisco, not own a car, but have no problem getting to work -- without having to ride with less desirable members of the public. (If I recall correctly, there was some fuss about the private buses using public bus stops, a few years ago.)
I've seen something similar in this area. Both Google and Microsoft sometimes use private buses to move groups of their employees from one location to another. (The buses look much nicer than those used by the public transit authorities.)
And some old-folks places here advertise that they have regular bus services for groups, and a few advertise that they have electric cars that residents can check out (for, I assume, a small fee).
All of these seem like reasonable solutions. What has not worked out here is light rail; the costs are so high, and the benefits go to a few -- who are heavily subsidized by the taxpayers.
You may recall that I've been banging on about the difference between syntactic and semantic information (the phenomena we observe and the meaning we put on it), and about how people don't believe statistics until you produce a story to go with it
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
So we're puzzled.
In the two YouTubes below, we have two reasonably intelligent people trying to explain the phenomenon. They settle on stories - "we have antibiotics so the need for inflammation is reduced" or "we live in heated houses", although one vid debunks them. There are other possible explanations - there may be a change in the mix of people measured, the measurements may be in differently temperatured places - but that's just me imposing a story on the phenom. People will continue to be a bit upset until a consensus story emerges, and then we'll go onto the next puzzle.
I would mortgage my grandmother and rob any number of widows and orphans to get money to stake on that being an artifact.
Also, "a measurable quantity has dropped from 98.6 to 98.5" but human bodies and core temperatures is semantic content. Explaining the thing ain't semantics.
On buses and cars in this Seattle area: Down in Silicon Valley, large companies provided, and may still provide, for all I know, private bus services. So a worker could live in San Francisco, not own a car, but have no problem getting to work -- without having to ride with less desirable members of the public. (If I recall correctly, there was some fuss about the private buses using public bus stops, a few years ago.)
I've seen something similar in this area. Both Google and Microsoft sometimes use private buses to move groups of their employees from one location to another. (The buses look much nicer than those used by the public transit authorities.)
And some old-folks places here advertise that they have regular bus services for groups, and a few advertise that they have electric cars that residents can check out (for, I assume, a small fee).
All of these seem like reasonable solutions. What has not worked out here is light rail; the costs are so high, and the benefits go to a few -- who are heavily subsidized by the taxpayers.
"Both Google and Microsoft sometimes use private buses to move groups of their employees from one location to another."
Sometimes? It's all the time, dude.
At least in my humble Seattle hood, every weekday morning see at least one parked - often hogging Metro bus stops - picking up techies who have NOT yet made it big, and moved out to the burbs.
You may recall that I've been banging on about the difference between syntactic and semantic information (the phenomena we observe and the meaning we put on it), and about how people don't believe statistics until you produce a story to go with it
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
So we're puzzled.
In the two YouTubes below, we have two reasonably intelligent people trying to explain the phenomenon. They settle on stories - "we have antibiotics so the need for inflammation is reduced" or "we live in heated houses", although one vid debunks them. There are other possible explanations - there may be a change in the mix of people measured, the measurements may be in differently temperatured places - but that's just me imposing a story on the phenom. People will continue to be a bit upset until a consensus story emerges, and then we'll go onto the next puzzle.
I would mortgage my grandmother and rob any number of widows and orphans to get money to stake on that being an artifact.
Also, "a measurable quantity has dropped from 98.6 to 98.5" but human bodies and core temperatures is semantic content. Explaining the thing ain't semantics.
Isn't is probably an evolutionary thing to cope with a warming world, as it gets hotter we will have less need to maintain a high core temperature which was set when the world tended to be colder. Are the core temperature of other mammals falling similarly?
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
I've checked doing all my necessary usual daily journeys by public transport. It'd take me 6 hrs 35 mins assuming I can line everything up perfectly and I'd be 2 hrs late to work every day.
Outside of major city centres, there’s not the population density for anything approaching adequate public transport. Hence the arguments in the outer reaches of London, where most households have at least one car, and even people who work from home face the daily ULEZ charges for taking their kids to school.
For the record, you should really add "if by any chance their car is one of the small minority that isn't ULEZ compliant".
You make it sound as if everybody has to pay the ULEZ charge, which is rather disingenuous.
Those most affected are the very poorest, who can’t afford to change their car.
If I were to take a guess, I might think that a number of unofficial lenders and scummy car dealers might spring up in outer London, looking to sell overpriced cars on credit to people left with no choice.
As a general political point, it’s been interesting to watch from afar, that those politicians who would traditionally look out for the poorest in society, now regularly place green issues higher than many of their constituents.
Excellent gain for my new Party hopefully lots more to cone as SKS Tories continue with their rightwards direction. ast Cliff and Springbourne (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) council by-election result:
You may recall that I've been banging on about the difference between syntactic and semantic information (the phenomena we observe and the meaning we put on it), and about how people don't believe statistics until you produce a story to go with it
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
So we're puzzled.
In the two YouTubes below, we have two reasonably intelligent people trying to explain the phenomenon. They settle on stories - "we have antibiotics so the need for inflammation is reduced" or "we live in heated houses", although one vid debunks them. There are other possible explanations - there may be a change in the mix of people measured, the measurements may be in differently temperatured places - but that's just me imposing a story on the phenom. People will continue to be a bit upset until a consensus story emerges, and then we'll go onto the next puzzle.
I would mortgage my grandmother and rob any number of widows and orphans to get money to stake on that being an artifact.
Also, "a measurable quantity has dropped from 98.6 to 98.5" but human bodies and core temperatures is semantic content. Explaining the thing ain't semantics.
Isn't is probably an evolutionary thing to cope with a warming world, as it gets hotter we will have less need to maintain a high core temperature which was set when the world tended to be colder. Are the core temperature of other mammals falling similarly?
Works the other way, or so I was taught. Slightly higher temp internally = less risk of heat stroke on exertion.
You may recall that I've been banging on about the difference between syntactic and semantic information (the phenomena we observe and the meaning we put on it), and about how people don't believe statistics until you produce a story to go with it
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
So we're puzzled.
In the two YouTubes below, we have two reasonably intelligent people trying to explain the phenomenon. They settle on stories - "we have antibiotics so the need for inflammation is reduced" or "we live in heated houses", although one vid debunks them. There are other possible explanations - there may be a change in the mix of people measured, the measurements may be in differently temperatured places - but that's just me imposing a story on the phenom. People will continue to be a bit upset until a consensus story emerges, and then we'll go onto the next puzzle.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
Translation is my second job, and continues to generate useful earnings. AI translation is now almost ubiquitous as a first draft, and it's pretty good, but about 20% of the sentences need tweaking and about 5% are actually wrong. This is in ways that are really hard for an AI to solve. I wouldn't recommend anyone to take up translation as a main career, but I think there will be a long tail of professional editing before we get to the point that anyone relies on AI for serious documentation. I'm paid about 65% of what I used to be paid, for work that takes less than half the time, so it counts as a genuine productivity improvement benefiting both client and supplier.
You may recall that I've been banging on about the difference between syntactic and semantic information (the phenomena we observe and the meaning we put on it), and about how people don't believe statistics until you produce a story to go with it
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
So we're puzzled.
In the two YouTubes below, we have two reasonably intelligent people trying to explain the phenomenon. They settle on stories - "we have antibiotics so the need for inflammation is reduced" or "we live in heated houses", although one vid debunks them. There are other possible explanations - there may be a change in the mix of people measured, the measurements may be in differently temperatured places - but that's just me imposing a story on the phenom. People will continue to be a bit upset until a consensus story emerges, and then we'll go onto the next puzzle.
I would mortgage my grandmother and rob any number of widows and orphans to get money to stake on that being an artifact.
Also, "a measurable quantity has dropped from 98.6 to 98.5" but human bodies and core temperatures is semantic content. Explaining the thing ain't semantics.
Isn't is probably an evolutionary thing to cope with a warming world, as it gets hotter we will have less need to maintain a high core temperature which was set when the world tended to be colder. Are the core temperature of other mammals falling similarly?
Without passing judgement on your explanation, I need to point out that you're imposing a story on the data to make sense of it..which was the point I was making. But you also pointed out a way of checking it, so good. Do you have such data?
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
I think that is an important insight.
Human beings follow the easiest path, so it is partly about making the desirable easier - by whatever criteria are chosen.
The issue is far less tractable in North America, where the thing has been set up to make it impossible not to have a private vehicle.
eg Zoning Law that prevents shops, restaurants, schools and businesses being set up in housing areas, whilst making the housing area uniform largish plots for detached dwellings that means it is not dense enough to support public transport, and too expensive for many types of people - which then drives societal divisions.
Yes people do what is easiest however that does not mean you can make public transport easiest.
For example I probably have 5-10 places I go when I leave home and go out. Assuming that is about normal for most. Then to make a bus the easiest you would have to provide me a nearby bus stop that is convenient (less than 5min walk) and from that bus stop you would have to run a bus directly to all those places I want to go. I shouldn't have to wait more than 5min for a bus and that bus should be guaranteed to turn up. Now multiply that by 100,000 people for a town all of whom may have non overlapping routes from any particular bus stop.
Car will always be easier
Yes - however frequency of journey use is a spectrum.
For example, my local hospital generates approx 2.4 million trips per annum, and the local Macarthur Glen generates more. No idea how many trips local town centres generate.
And the wonder of bus timetables is setting them up to catch a enough journeys to justify the service.
And people are a spectrum too.
Personally my choice 10 years ago was to live within walking distance of my town centre, as I know that I may eventually lose part of my eyesight (Diabetes) so I need to be able to live without a car. Quite a chunk of the population have a similar set of circumstances.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
You may recall that I've been banging on about the difference between syntactic and semantic information (the phenomena we observe and the meaning we put on it), and about how people don't believe statistics until you produce a story to go with it
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
So we're puzzled.
In the two YouTubes below, we have two reasonably intelligent people trying to explain the phenomenon. They settle on stories - "we have antibiotics so the need for inflammation is reduced" or "we live in heated houses", although one vid debunks them. There are other possible explanations - there may be a change in the mix of people measured, the measurements may be in differently temperatured places - but that's just me imposing a story on the phenom. People will continue to be a bit upset until a consensus story emerges, and then we'll go onto the next puzzle.
I would mortgage my grandmother and rob any number of widows and orphans to get money to stake on that being an artifact.
Also, "a measurable quantity has dropped from 98.6 to 98.5" but human bodies and core temperatures is semantic content. Explaining the thing ain't semantics.
Isn't is probably an evolutionary thing to cope with a warming world, as it gets hotter we will have less need to maintain a high core temperature which was set when the world tended to be colder. Are the core temperature of other mammals falling similarly?
Without passing judgement on your explanation, I need to point out that you're imposing a story on the data to make sense of it..which was the point I was making. But you also pointed out a way of checking it, so good. Do you have such data?
I was speculating, seemed more likely than we live in heated houses. I also suggested a method of testing the hypothesis which is if most mammals are also having lower core temps then its probably not antibiotics or living in heated houses.
I was not asserting its true, mere offering a hypothesis
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
I've checked doing all my necessary usual daily journeys by public transport. It'd take me 6 hrs 35 mins assuming I can line everything up perfectly and I'd be 2 hrs late to work every day.
Outside of major city centres, there’s not the population density for anything approaching adequate public transport. Hence the arguments in the outer reaches of London, where most households have at least one car, and even people who work from home face the daily ULEZ charges for taking their kids to school.
For the record, you should really add "if by any chance their car is one of the small minority that isn't ULEZ compliant".
You make it sound as if everybody has to pay the ULEZ charge, which is rather disingenuous.
Those most affected are the very poorest, who can’t afford to change their car.
If I were to take a guess, I might think that a number of unofficial lenders and scummy car dealers might spring up in outer London, looking to sell overpriced cars on credit to people left with no choice.
As a general political point, it’s been interesting to watch from afar, that those politicians who would traditionally look out for the poorest in society, now regularly place green issues higher than many of their constituents.
No the very poorest mostly don't have a car. 78% of households in London earning less than £10k/yr don't have a car. 64% of households earning £10-20k don't have a car. Even in outer London the figures are 70% and 53% respectively. And NO2 pollution is higher in poorer areas. The ULEZ is absolutely all about helping the poor - the people who are most likely to suffer from dirty air and least likely to be contributing to it.
Excellent gain for my new Party hopefully lots more to cone as SKS Tories continue with their rightwards direction. ast Cliff and Springbourne (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) council by-election result:
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
Self driving cars are on their way and no amount of pedestrians on zebra crossings are going to stop them!
I do wonder what happens with those rising bollard thingies. Or neds on escooters. Pity we don't have deodand in Scots law.
Suspect that such cars will be expected to automatically stop, or the manufacturer will be liable.
Judging by the quite large number of collisions and serious injuries in the States, we will need a more uniform environment.
Though there will be fewer out and out idiots than amongst human drivers.
The spectacle of folks like Leon arguing simultaneously that there are >literally billions< of would be refugees heading to the UK, and, by riding roughshod across our international agreements to deport a couple of thousand unfortunates at most, we'll put an end to the determination of these 'billions' is striking.
Not so much cullions of steel, as brains of rock.
The estimate of refugees due to climate change in the next 3 decades is indeed in the billions most of whom will head for european countries.
While it will sadden me I suspect out of 2 options
a) Let them all in or b) Ever more draconian border control leading to fortress europe
that all european countries will opt for b) as their populations will not put up with taking in the numbers it implies
We've heard these visions of doom before as an excuse for racism now. Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno.
Well if you think european countries and their populations are going to accept that level of refugees then I have a bridge to sell you.
The vision of doom for the scale of migration is not one I made up it is what those studying the effects of climate change are predicting.
I am not downplaying the seriousness of climate change and support action to tackle climate change (much, much more action). Clearly, such action will pay for itself if it can reduce these numbers.
I question your interpretation of what might happen: that the 1.2 billion will all come to Europe (that's not what the article says, that's something you've invented) and that there are only 2 possible options in how to respond (all or nothing).
The logical places for peoples to move to en masse if we have significant global warming are surely Russia and Canada? Massive areas of largely unused land currently but could become similar to Northern Europe with a bit of global warming.
Logical if you just look it as space, if you were having to uproot your family from say rwanda due to climate change....would you rather take them to germany or russia. Logic for your family dictates the modern liberal democracy not the oligarch infested kleptocracy where your children will be likely fed to a war machine.
Canada would fit modern liberal democracy but a) its harder to get too and b) requires canada to want you as well
The government of Russia today may be quite different to the government of Russia in 30-50 years time. As may be the case in Germany.
Yes of course Russia is currently not welcoming. It has just suffered a major brain drain with educated young people leaving and being needlessly killed because of Putins fantasy. That leaves a bit of a vaccuum in the demographics and nature abhors a vaccuum.
There will be an opportunity for Russia to rebuild through a mix of immigration and its resource vs climate changes. It may or may not take it.
And Canada is pretty pro immigrant and has the example of the US to follow/learn from.
Well given both Germany and Russia have been run pretty much the same as they are now for the last 60 years then I am not holding my breath they will change that much in the next 5 or so election cycles...the claimed figure is by 2050 so 27 years.
Canada is welcoming of immigrants it wants currently yes, that though is a far cry however from welcoming say 50 million of them.
The cream of climate change refugees will no doubt be accepted by countries, the rest I suspect not so much
Maybe if we are lucky the climate change refugees will be as elusive as the much heralded but somewhat elusive eustatic sea level change.
Nasa thinks we're up ~ 10 centimetres since 1993.
Yea, but not quite the 10 meters that would have been forecast back then. It is pretty difficult to measure to be fair, particularly when you have gravity anomalies in the Indian Ocean
No climate scientists were forecasting 10 meters by now in 1993.
The mean sea level has risen by about 20 cm since preindustrial times and is expect to have risen by between 50 and 100 cm by the end of the century. It won't stop then though, and is likely to be of the order of a few meters by 2300, depending on what we do about emissions and how the Antarctic ice sheet behaves.
I originally studied climate science (only to bachelors degree level) back in the early 1980s before I changed career path, so I am reasonably informed thanks, though far from being an expert.
For what little it is worth I am part of the consensus that believes in anthropomorphic climate change, but I get very frustrated by the hyperbole that is essentially non-scientific and politically driven, and undermines scientific credibility. I can tell you that back in the early 80s (if not the 90s when I had changed career) 10 meters and more was regularly discussed by climate scientists, often those that one might question their motivations when it was a very underfunded area of academic endeavour. You will note that even the article you link to they state that "key processes that determine the future rate of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are poorly understood, which leads to deep uncertainty in future projections". Indeed! I can also tell you that the measurement of eustatic sea level rise continues to also be contentious. This is because of deep variations due to gravity abnormality and also the accuracy of past measurement that rely on geological extrapolations that also have to be offset by isostatic (localised and relative) sea level change.
Claims of the veracity of predictions of catastrophic sea level rise should be taken with a large pinch of sea salt.
Source for you contention, for your claim that 10 meter rise in eustatic sea levels was forecast in early 1980s/
So my recollection is as much prone to hyperbole as Leon is after a few pink gins, but the point still stands, the more scaremongering predictions were wrong. My point is, I guess, that those who are certain that there will be millions of "climate refugees" need not be so pessimistic. Norfolk will not be engulfed in any of our lifetimes, which is a blessing for anyone that loves the place.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
Excellent gain for my new Party hopefully lots more to cone as SKS Tories continue with their rightwards direction. ast Cliff and Springbourne (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) council by-election result:
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
Translation is my second job, and continues to generate useful earnings. AI translation is now almost ubiquitous as a first draft, and it's pretty good, but about 20% of the sentences need tweaking and about 5% are actually wrong. This is in ways that are really hard for an AI to solve. I wouldn't recommend anyone to take up translation as a main career, but I think there will be a long tail of professional editing before we get to the point that anyone relies on AI for serious documentation. I'm paid about 65% of what I used to be paid, for work that takes less than half the time, so it counts as a genuine productivity improvement benefiting both client and supplier.
Interesting to hear from the coalface, spassibo
I was just googling machine translation. It seems the main effect has been a lowering of hourly rates (for human translators), and the disappearance of easier work. And this is an accelerating trend
So it seems there will be a fairly long period when machines and humans both do the job, but the machines will generally take over everything - until human translators are really rare, perhaps even status symbols? (for politicians and diplomats and billionaires)
I remember years ago saying human translators would become like fountain pens, or horses. Once used by everyone, now used by a small subset of people who want to look flash, or because they are rich and enjoy riding for fun, and so forth, or because there is some really unique demand (human calligraphy in special documents and the like)
I reckon the same will apply to many careers in the knowledge economy. The human element will become a rarity, but it will be prized at the very high end. But a shedload of jobs will simply vanish
Just think of all the excess letters that could be saved if they just rebranded it “Canaday”. “Happy Canaday” cards would save tonnes of ink as billions around the world celebrate the most important national day in North America.
The spectacle of folks like Leon arguing simultaneously that there are >literally billions< of would be refugees heading to the UK, and, by riding roughshod across our international agreements to deport a couple of thousand unfortunates at most, we'll put an end to the determination of these 'billions' is striking.
Not so much cullions of steel, as brains of rock.
The estimate of refugees due to climate change in the next 3 decades is indeed in the billions most of whom will head for european countries.
While it will sadden me I suspect out of 2 options
a) Let them all in or b) Ever more draconian border control leading to fortress europe
that all european countries will opt for b) as their populations will not put up with taking in the numbers it implies
We've heard these visions of doom before as an excuse for racism now. Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno.
Well if you think european countries and their populations are going to accept that level of refugees then I have a bridge to sell you.
The vision of doom for the scale of migration is not one I made up it is what those studying the effects of climate change are predicting.
I am not downplaying the seriousness of climate change and support action to tackle climate change (much, much more action). Clearly, such action will pay for itself if it can reduce these numbers.
I question your interpretation of what might happen: that the 1.2 billion will all come to Europe (that's not what the article says, that's something you've invented) and that there are only 2 possible options in how to respond (all or nothing).
The logical places for peoples to move to en masse if we have significant global warming are surely Russia and Canada? Massive areas of largely unused land currently but could become similar to Northern Europe with a bit of global warming.
Logical if you just look it as space, if you were having to uproot your family from say rwanda due to climate change....would you rather take them to germany or russia. Logic for your family dictates the modern liberal democracy not the oligarch infested kleptocracy where your children will be likely fed to a war machine.
Canada would fit modern liberal democracy but a) its harder to get too and b) requires canada to want you as well
The government of Russia today may be quite different to the government of Russia in 30-50 years time. As may be the case in Germany.
Yes of course Russia is currently not welcoming. It has just suffered a major brain drain with educated young people leaving and being needlessly killed because of Putins fantasy. That leaves a bit of a vaccuum in the demographics and nature abhors a vaccuum.
There will be an opportunity for Russia to rebuild through a mix of immigration and its resource vs climate changes. It may or may not take it.
And Canada is pretty pro immigrant and has the example of the US to follow/learn from.
Well given both Germany and Russia have been run pretty much the same as they are now for the last 60 years then I am not holding my breath they will change that much in the next 5 or so election cycles...the claimed figure is by 2050 so 27 years.
Canada is welcoming of immigrants it wants currently yes, that though is a far cry however from welcoming say 50 million of them.
The cream of climate change refugees will no doubt be accepted by countries, the rest I suspect not so much
Maybe if we are lucky the climate change refugees will be as elusive as the much heralded but somewhat elusive eustatic sea level change.
Nasa thinks we're up ~ 10 centimetres since 1993.
Yea, but not quite the 10 meters that would have been forecast back then. It is pretty difficult to measure to be fair, particularly when you have gravity anomalies in the Indian Ocean
No climate scientists were forecasting 10 meters by now in 1993.
The mean sea level has risen by about 20 cm since preindustrial times and is expect to have risen by between 50 and 100 cm by the end of the century. It won't stop then though, and is likely to be of the order of a few meters by 2300, depending on what we do about emissions and how the Antarctic ice sheet behaves.
I originally studied climate science (only to bachelors degree level) back in the early 1980s before I changed career path, so I am reasonably informed thanks, though far from being an expert.
For what little it is worth I am part of the consensus that believes in anthropomorphic climate change, but I get very frustrated by the hyperbole that is essentially non-scientific and politically driven, and undermines scientific credibility. I can tell you that back in the early 80s (if not the 90s when I had changed career) 10 meters and more was regularly discussed by climate scientists, often those that one might question their motivations when it was a very underfunded area of academic endeavour. You will note that even the article you link to they state that "key processes that determine the future rate of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are poorly understood, which leads to deep uncertainty in future projections". Indeed! I can also tell you that the measurement of eustatic sea level rise continues to also be contentious. This is because of deep variations due to gravity abnormality and also the accuracy of past measurement that rely on geological extrapolations that also have to be offset by isostatic (localised and relative) sea level change.
Claims of the veracity of predictions of catastrophic sea level rise should be taken with a large pinch of sea salt.
Source for you contention, for your claim that 10 meter rise in eustatic sea levels was forecast in early 1980s/
So my recollection is as much prone to hyperbole as Leon is after a few pink gins, but the point still stands, the more scaremongering predictions were wrong. My point is, I guess, that those who are certain that there will be millions of "climate refugees" need not be so pessimistic. Norfolk will not be engulfed in any of our lifetimes, which is a blessing for anyone that loves the place.
You just made up some ludicrous old tosh, but "the point still stands". Hilarious.
Incidentally I am not talking entirely about OTHER professions. My second job on the Knapper's Gazette will soon be in peril. This is happening, now
"German tabloid Bild cuts 200 jobs and says some roles will be replaced by AI
Publisher Axel Springer announces reorganisation of regional business and outlines plans for digital future
Germany’s Bild tabloid, the biggest-selling newspaper in Europe, has announced a €100m cost-cutting programme that will lead to about 200 redundancies, and warned staff that it expects to make further editorial cuts due to “the opportunities of artificial intelligence”.
Bild’s publisher, Axel Springer SE, said in an email to staff seen by the rival Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) newspaper that it would “unfortunately be parting ways with colleagues who have tasks that in the digital world are performed by AI and/or automated processes”"
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
Self driving cars are on their way and no amount of pedestrians on zebra crossings are going to stop them!
I do wonder what happens with those rising bollard thingies. Or neds on escooters. Pity we don't have deodand in Scots law.
Suspect that such cars will be expected to automatically stop, or the manufacturer will be liable.
Judging by the quite large number of collisions and serious injuries in the States, we will need a more uniform environment.
Though there will be fewer out and out idiots than amongst human drivers.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
Also given ChatGPT loves to hallucinate, you will probably end up with a different ending if you were to rely totally on it. Might improve some books mind you.
With the temperature question below, I do have suspicions about historic data and accuracy. Was the data actually measured to 0 1 degrees Fahrenheit (i assume not centigrade), and how good were the instruments and measurement process? Apologies if thus was covered in the videos; I am at a swimming pool...
The spectacle of folks like Leon arguing simultaneously that there are >literally billions< of would be refugees heading to the UK, and, by riding roughshod across our international agreements to deport a couple of thousand unfortunates at most, we'll put an end to the determination of these 'billions' is striking.
Not so much cullions of steel, as brains of rock.
The estimate of refugees due to climate change in the next 3 decades is indeed in the billions most of whom will head for european countries.
While it will sadden me I suspect out of 2 options
a) Let them all in or b) Ever more draconian border control leading to fortress europe
that all european countries will opt for b) as their populations will not put up with taking in the numbers it implies
We've heard these visions of doom before as an excuse for racism now. Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno.
Well if you think european countries and their populations are going to accept that level of refugees then I have a bridge to sell you.
The vision of doom for the scale of migration is not one I made up it is what those studying the effects of climate change are predicting.
I am not downplaying the seriousness of climate change and support action to tackle climate change (much, much more action). Clearly, such action will pay for itself if it can reduce these numbers.
I question your interpretation of what might happen: that the 1.2 billion will all come to Europe (that's not what the article says, that's something you've invented) and that there are only 2 possible options in how to respond (all or nothing).
The logical places for peoples to move to en masse if we have significant global warming are surely Russia and Canada? Massive areas of largely unused land currently but could become similar to Northern Europe with a bit of global warming.
Logical if you just look it as space, if you were having to uproot your family from say rwanda due to climate change....would you rather take them to germany or russia. Logic for your family dictates the modern liberal democracy not the oligarch infested kleptocracy where your children will be likely fed to a war machine.
Canada would fit modern liberal democracy but a) its harder to get too and b) requires canada to want you as well
The government of Russia today may be quite different to the government of Russia in 30-50 years time. As may be the case in Germany.
Yes of course Russia is currently not welcoming. It has just suffered a major brain drain with educated young people leaving and being needlessly killed because of Putins fantasy. That leaves a bit of a vaccuum in the demographics and nature abhors a vaccuum.
There will be an opportunity for Russia to rebuild through a mix of immigration and its resource vs climate changes. It may or may not take it.
And Canada is pretty pro immigrant and has the example of the US to follow/learn from.
Well given both Germany and Russia have been run pretty much the same as they are now for the last 60 years then I am not holding my breath they will change that much in the next 5 or so election cycles...the claimed figure is by 2050 so 27 years.
Canada is welcoming of immigrants it wants currently yes, that though is a far cry however from welcoming say 50 million of them.
The cream of climate change refugees will no doubt be accepted by countries, the rest I suspect not so much
Maybe if we are lucky the climate change refugees will be as elusive as the much heralded but somewhat elusive eustatic sea level change.
Nasa thinks we're up ~ 10 centimetres since 1993.
Yea, but not quite the 10 meters that would have been forecast back then. It is pretty difficult to measure to be fair, particularly when you have gravity anomalies in the Indian Ocean
No climate scientists were forecasting 10 meters by now in 1993.
The mean sea level has risen by about 20 cm since preindustrial times and is expect to have risen by between 50 and 100 cm by the end of the century. It won't stop then though, and is likely to be of the order of a few meters by 2300, depending on what we do about emissions and how the Antarctic ice sheet behaves.
I originally studied climate science (only to bachelors degree level) back in the early 1980s before I changed career path, so I am reasonably informed thanks, though far from being an expert.
For what little it is worth I am part of the consensus that believes in anthropomorphic climate change, but I get very frustrated by the hyperbole that is essentially non-scientific and politically driven, and undermines scientific credibility. I can tell you that back in the early 80s (if not the 90s when I had changed career) 10 meters and more was regularly discussed by climate scientists, often those that one might question their motivations when it was a very underfunded area of academic endeavour. You will note that even the article you link to they state that "key processes that determine the future rate of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are poorly understood, which leads to deep uncertainty in future projections". Indeed! I can also tell you that the measurement of eustatic sea level rise continues to also be contentious. This is because of deep variations due to gravity abnormality and also the accuracy of past measurement that rely on geological extrapolations that also have to be offset by isostatic (localised and relative) sea level change.
Claims of the veracity of predictions of catastrophic sea level rise should be taken with a large pinch of sea salt.
Source for you contention, for your claim that 10 meter rise in eustatic sea levels was forecast in early 1980s/
So my recollection is as much prone to hyperbole as Leon is after a few pink gins, but the point still stands, the more scaremongering predictions were wrong. My point is, I guess, that those who are certain that there will be millions of "climate refugees" need not be so pessimistic. Norfolk will not be engulfed in any of our lifetimes, which is a blessing for anyone that loves the place.
You just made up some ludicrous old tosh, but "the point still stands". Hilarious.
Whereas you normally talk tosh the whole time because you have no one to talk to because you have no friends as you are a boring, humourless little pillock.
Incidentally I am not talking entirely about OTHER professions. My second job on the Knapper's Gazette will soon be in peril. This is happening, now
"German tabloid Bild cuts 200 jobs and says some roles will be replaced by AI
Publisher Axel Springer announces reorganisation of regional business and outlines plans for digital future
Germany’s Bild tabloid, the biggest-selling newspaper in Europe, has announced a €100m cost-cutting programme that will lead to about 200 redundancies, and warned staff that it expects to make further editorial cuts due to “the opportunities of artificial intelligence”.
Bild’s publisher, Axel Springer SE, said in an email to staff seen by the rival Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) newspaper that it would “unfortunately be parting ways with colleagues who have tasks that in the digital world are performed by AI and/or automated processes”"
LLM will allow the Daily Mail-ification of journalism across the board. Want to write 1000 articles a day in order to maximise the recurring hits on your website, now you don't need a massive staff of writers.
You just need take to input tweets from a select sources, LLM writes the article, low paid gopher quickly checks the copy, if its factually wrong, somebody will complain and you can fix it.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
It absolutely does need the human touch, but it is REALLY badly paid. I wonder how long people will be willing to do it
The spectacle of folks like Leon arguing simultaneously that there are >literally billions< of would be refugees heading to the UK, and, by riding roughshod across our international agreements to deport a couple of thousand unfortunates at most, we'll put an end to the determination of these 'billions' is striking.
Not so much cullions of steel, as brains of rock.
The estimate of refugees due to climate change in the next 3 decades is indeed in the billions most of whom will head for european countries.
While it will sadden me I suspect out of 2 options
a) Let them all in or b) Ever more draconian border control leading to fortress europe
that all european countries will opt for b) as their populations will not put up with taking in the numbers it implies
We've heard these visions of doom before as an excuse for racism now. Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno.
Well if you think european countries and their populations are going to accept that level of refugees then I have a bridge to sell you.
The vision of doom for the scale of migration is not one I made up it is what those studying the effects of climate change are predicting.
I am not downplaying the seriousness of climate change and support action to tackle climate change (much, much more action). Clearly, such action will pay for itself if it can reduce these numbers.
I question your interpretation of what might happen: that the 1.2 billion will all come to Europe (that's not what the article says, that's something you've invented) and that there are only 2 possible options in how to respond (all or nothing).
The logical places for peoples to move to en masse if we have significant global warming are surely Russia and Canada? Massive areas of largely unused land currently but could become similar to Northern Europe with a bit of global warming.
Logical if you just look it as space, if you were having to uproot your family from say rwanda due to climate change....would you rather take them to germany or russia. Logic for your family dictates the modern liberal democracy not the oligarch infested kleptocracy where your children will be likely fed to a war machine.
Canada would fit modern liberal democracy but a) its harder to get too and b) requires canada to want you as well
The government of Russia today may be quite different to the government of Russia in 30-50 years time. As may be the case in Germany.
Yes of course Russia is currently not welcoming. It has just suffered a major brain drain with educated young people leaving and being needlessly killed because of Putins fantasy. That leaves a bit of a vaccuum in the demographics and nature abhors a vaccuum.
There will be an opportunity for Russia to rebuild through a mix of immigration and its resource vs climate changes. It may or may not take it.
And Canada is pretty pro immigrant and has the example of the US to follow/learn from.
Well given both Germany and Russia have been run pretty much the same as they are now for the last 60 years then I am not holding my breath they will change that much in the next 5 or so election cycles...the claimed figure is by 2050 so 27 years.
Canada is welcoming of immigrants it wants currently yes, that though is a far cry however from welcoming say 50 million of them.
The cream of climate change refugees will no doubt be accepted by countries, the rest I suspect not so much
Maybe if we are lucky the climate change refugees will be as elusive as the much heralded but somewhat elusive eustatic sea level change.
Nasa thinks we're up ~ 10 centimetres since 1993.
Yea, but not quite the 10 meters that would have been forecast back then. It is pretty difficult to measure to be fair, particularly when you have gravity anomalies in the Indian Ocean
No climate scientists were forecasting 10 meters by now in 1993.
The mean sea level has risen by about 20 cm since preindustrial times and is expect to have risen by between 50 and 100 cm by the end of the century. It won't stop then though, and is likely to be of the order of a few meters by 2300, depending on what we do about emissions and how the Antarctic ice sheet behaves.
I originally studied climate science (only to bachelors degree level) back in the early 1980s before I changed career path, so I am reasonably informed thanks, though far from being an expert.
For what little it is worth I am part of the consensus that believes in anthropomorphic climate change, but I get very frustrated by the hyperbole that is essentially non-scientific and politically driven, and undermines scientific credibility. I can tell you that back in the early 80s (if not the 90s when I had changed career) 10 meters and more was regularly discussed by climate scientists, often those that one might question their motivations when it was a very underfunded area of academic endeavour. You will note that even the article you link to they state that "key processes that determine the future rate of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are poorly understood, which leads to deep uncertainty in future projections". Indeed! I can also tell you that the measurement of eustatic sea level rise continues to also be contentious. This is because of deep variations due to gravity abnormality and also the accuracy of past measurement that rely on geological extrapolations that also have to be offset by isostatic (localised and relative) sea level change.
Claims of the veracity of predictions of catastrophic sea level rise should be taken with a large pinch of sea salt.
Source for you contention, for your claim that 10 meter rise in eustatic sea levels was forecast in early 1980s/
So my recollection is as much prone to hyperbole as Leon is after a few pink gins, but the point still stands, the more scaremongering predictions were wrong. My point is, I guess, that those who are certain that there will be millions of "climate refugees" need not be so pessimistic. Norfolk will not be engulfed in any of our lifetimes, which is a blessing for anyone that loves the place.
You just made up some ludicrous old tosh, but "the point still stands". Hilarious.
Whereas you normally talk tosh the whole time because you have no one to talk to because you have no friends as you are a boring, humourless little pillock.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
Mechanisation rarely destroys all the jobs in a particular area, it normally just shifts the emphasis. BigG's granddaughter might well end up on a six figure salary advising the coders on how to validate the next great translation software.
You may recall that I've been banging on about the difference between syntactic and semantic information (the phenomena we observe and the meaning we put on it), and about how people don't believe statistics until you produce a story to go with it
You may be interested in a real life example of this. Apparently, over the past two centuries the base human body temperature has dropped very slightly by a few tenths of a degree, from 98.6 to 98.5 degrees C. We don't know why. It's believed to be a real phenomenon (ie it's not a measurement error), so we know the syntactic info (98.6 to 98.5) but we don't have a semantic explanation.
So we're puzzled.
In the two YouTubes below, we have two reasonably intelligent people trying to explain the phenomenon. They settle on stories - "we have antibiotics so the need for inflammation is reduced" or "we live in heated houses", although one vid debunks them. There are other possible explanations - there may be a change in the mix of people measured, the measurements may be in differently temperatured places - but that's just me imposing a story on the phenom. People will continue to be a bit upset until a consensus story emerges, and then we'll go onto the next puzzle.
I would mortgage my grandmother and rob any number of widows and orphans to get money to stake on that being an artifact.
Also, "a measurable quantity has dropped from 98.6 to 98.5" but human bodies and core temperatures is semantic content. Explaining the thing ain't semantics.
Isn't is probably an evolutionary thing to cope with a warming world, as it gets hotter we will have less need to maintain a high core temperature which was set when the world tended to be colder. Are the core temperature of other mammals falling similarly?
Evolution requires differential reproductive success, to happen. It also needs more generations than there are in 2 centuries, even if the 98.6ers all die off before reaching puberty, or are shunned in the search for reproductive mates.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
Given the protectionist nature of the EU and much stronger Labour unions, surprised they haven't regulated to stop this on the grounds the AI can't be trusted to be correct etc.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
That’s a good point. Artistic translation will remain a human skill for a while, although TV show subtitles probably won’t take long.
That all said. My wife, as you know, speaks Russian. There’s already a cottage industry of TV and movie pirates in Russian-speaking countries, who can be uploading not just subtitled but dubbed media, within a day of release in the English-speaking world.
My assumption is that there’s a bunch of students from the language school, the drama school, and the media school, who watch the original, write the script, translate the script, get a group of actors to read the script, record the script, edit the voice recording back into the original programme, and have it uploaded onto pirate websites, all in a matter of hours.
There’s several of these groups out there, who compete on time and quality. It’s like the ‘90s OG English-speaking internet all over again, where forum collaboration on all sorts of mad stuff, just for the hell of it, was rife.
The spectacle of folks like Leon arguing simultaneously that there are >literally billions< of would be refugees heading to the UK, and, by riding roughshod across our international agreements to deport a couple of thousand unfortunates at most, we'll put an end to the determination of these 'billions' is striking.
Not so much cullions of steel, as brains of rock.
The estimate of refugees due to climate change in the next 3 decades is indeed in the billions most of whom will head for european countries.
While it will sadden me I suspect out of 2 options
a) Let them all in or b) Ever more draconian border control leading to fortress europe
that all european countries will opt for b) as their populations will not put up with taking in the numbers it implies
We've heard these visions of doom before as an excuse for racism now. Thybrim multo spumantem sanguine cerno.
Well if you think european countries and their populations are going to accept that level of refugees then I have a bridge to sell you.
The vision of doom for the scale of migration is not one I made up it is what those studying the effects of climate change are predicting.
I am not downplaying the seriousness of climate change and support action to tackle climate change (much, much more action). Clearly, such action will pay for itself if it can reduce these numbers.
I question your interpretation of what might happen: that the 1.2 billion will all come to Europe (that's not what the article says, that's something you've invented) and that there are only 2 possible options in how to respond (all or nothing).
The logical places for peoples to move to en masse if we have significant global warming are surely Russia and Canada? Massive areas of largely unused land currently but could become similar to Northern Europe with a bit of global warming.
Logical if you just look it as space, if you were having to uproot your family from say rwanda due to climate change....would you rather take them to germany or russia. Logic for your family dictates the modern liberal democracy not the oligarch infested kleptocracy where your children will be likely fed to a war machine.
Canada would fit modern liberal democracy but a) its harder to get too and b) requires canada to want you as well
The government of Russia today may be quite different to the government of Russia in 30-50 years time. As may be the case in Germany.
Yes of course Russia is currently not welcoming. It has just suffered a major brain drain with educated young people leaving and being needlessly killed because of Putins fantasy. That leaves a bit of a vaccuum in the demographics and nature abhors a vaccuum.
There will be an opportunity for Russia to rebuild through a mix of immigration and its resource vs climate changes. It may or may not take it.
And Canada is pretty pro immigrant and has the example of the US to follow/learn from.
Well given both Germany and Russia have been run pretty much the same as they are now for the last 60 years then I am not holding my breath they will change that much in the next 5 or so election cycles...the claimed figure is by 2050 so 27 years.
Canada is welcoming of immigrants it wants currently yes, that though is a far cry however from welcoming say 50 million of them.
The cream of climate change refugees will no doubt be accepted by countries, the rest I suspect not so much
Maybe if we are lucky the climate change refugees will be as elusive as the much heralded but somewhat elusive eustatic sea level change.
Nasa thinks we're up ~ 10 centimetres since 1993.
Yea, but not quite the 10 meters that would have been forecast back then. It is pretty difficult to measure to be fair, particularly when you have gravity anomalies in the Indian Ocean
No climate scientists were forecasting 10 meters by now in 1993.
The mean sea level has risen by about 20 cm since preindustrial times and is expect to have risen by between 50 and 100 cm by the end of the century. It won't stop then though, and is likely to be of the order of a few meters by 2300, depending on what we do about emissions and how the Antarctic ice sheet behaves.
I originally studied climate science (only to bachelors degree level) back in the early 1980s before I changed career path, so I am reasonably informed thanks, though far from being an expert.
For what little it is worth I am part of the consensus that believes in anthropomorphic climate change, but I get very frustrated by the hyperbole that is essentially non-scientific and politically driven, and undermines scientific credibility. I can tell you that back in the early 80s (if not the 90s when I had changed career) 10 meters and more was regularly discussed by climate scientists, often those that one might question their motivations when it was a very underfunded area of academic endeavour. You will note that even the article you link to they state that "key processes that determine the future rate of ice loss from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are poorly understood, which leads to deep uncertainty in future projections". Indeed! I can also tell you that the measurement of eustatic sea level rise continues to also be contentious. This is because of deep variations due to gravity abnormality and also the accuracy of past measurement that rely on geological extrapolations that also have to be offset by isostatic (localised and relative) sea level change.
Claims of the veracity of predictions of catastrophic sea level rise should be taken with a large pinch of sea salt.
Source for you contention, for your claim that 10 meter rise in eustatic sea levels was forecast in early 1980s/
So my recollection is as much prone to hyperbole as Leon is after a few pink gins, but the point still stands, the more scaremongering predictions were wrong. My point is, I guess, that those who are certain that there will be millions of "climate refugees" need not be so pessimistic. Norfolk will not be engulfed in any of our lifetimes, which is a blessing for anyone that loves the place.
You just made up some ludicrous old tosh, but "the point still stands". Hilarious.
Whereas you normally talk tosh the whole time because you have no one to talk to because you have no friends as you are a boring, humourless little pillock.
No, you're thinking of me.
Nope, I am not having that one. Chris holds that title and however hard you try, you can't help being funny. He has the opposite problem.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
That’s a good point. Artistic translation will remain a human skill for a while, although TV show subtitles probably won’t take long.
That all said. My wife, as you know, speaks Russian. There’s already a cottage industry of TV and movie pirates in Russian-speaking countries, who can be uploading not just subtitled but dubbed media, within a day of release in the English-speaking world.
My assumption is that there’s a bunch of students from the language school, the drama school, and the media school, who watch the original, write the script, translate the script, get a group of actors to read the script, record the script, edit the voice recording back into the original programme, and have it uploaded onto pirate websites, all in a matter of hours.
There’s several of these groups out there, who compete on time and quality. It’s like the ‘90s OG English-speaking internet all over again, where forum collaboration on all sorts of mad stuff, just for the hell of it, was rife.
There are two industries who are always first to embrace technological advancement. Adult industry and the pirates.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
This is going well. That was unlucky. It is a good job that England bat deep. We'll get them when we field It looks like its going to rain, that will save us. Well 2-0 is recoverable We've lost but we've got two tests to avoid the whitewash It'll be a different story in Australia
Bazball, meet reality - you've managed to avoid one another for a year.
Incidentally I am not talking entirely about OTHER professions. My second job on the Knapper's Gazette will soon be in peril. This is happening, now
"German tabloid Bild cuts 200 jobs and says some roles will be replaced by AI
Publisher Axel Springer announces reorganisation of regional business and outlines plans for digital future
Germany’s Bild tabloid, the biggest-selling newspaper in Europe, has announced a €100m cost-cutting programme that will lead to about 200 redundancies, and warned staff that it expects to make further editorial cuts due to “the opportunities of artificial intelligence”.
Bild’s publisher, Axel Springer SE, said in an email to staff seen by the rival Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) newspaper that it would “unfortunately be parting ways with colleagues who have tasks that in the digital world are performed by AI and/or automated processes”"
LLM will allow the Daily Mail-ification of journalism across the board. Want to write 1000 articles a day in order to maximise the recurring hits on your website, now you don't need a massive staff of writers.
You just need take to input tweets from a select sources, LLM writes the article, low paid gopher quickly checks the copy, if its factually wrong, somebody will complain and you can fix it.
The AI generated Woke-drivel that got published in the Irish Times is a hefty straw in the wind
It shows that certain types of predictable articles - like Woke stuff in the Guardian - "Quantum physics is raicst and here's why" - or an Express shock horror Diana in a heatwave story - or a Daily Mail rant about migrants - can very easily be generated by ChatGPT already. To a publishable standard. This alone threatens thousands of journalistic jobs
Eventually you will be left with columnists with highly idiosyncratic styles, personal human stories of misery or joy, and some in-the-field reporting - war or travel
Everything else in journalism, it seems to me, can be automated. Sadly
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
Self driving cars are on their way and no amount of pedestrians on zebra crossings are going to stop them!
I do wonder what happens with those rising bollard thingies. Or neds on escooters. Pity we don't have deodand in Scots law.
Suspect that such cars will be expected to automatically stop, or the manufacturer will be liable.
Judging by the quite large number of collisions and serious injuries in the States, we will need a more uniform environment.
Though there will be fewer out and out idiots than amongst human drivers.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
That’s a good point. Artistic translation will remain a human skill for a while, although TV show subtitles probably won’t take long.
That all said. My wife, as you know, speaks Russian. There’s already a cottage industry of TV and movie pirates in Russian-speaking countries, who can be uploading not just subtitled but dubbed media, within a day of release in the English-speaking world.
My assumption is that there’s a bunch of students from the language school, the drama school, and the media school, who watch the original, write the script, translate the script, get a group of actors to read the script, record the script, edit the voice recording back into the original programme, and have it uploaded onto pirate websites, all in a matter of hours.
There’s several of these groups out there, who compete on time and quality. It’s like the ‘90s OG English-speaking internet all over again, where forum collaboration on all sorts of mad stuff, just for the hell of it, was rife.
There are two industries who are always first to embrace technological advancement. Adult industry and the pirates.
The latter pirate a lot of the former, of course.
When will the adult industry receive due reward for its eager, nay, thrusting penetration into technological innovations?
With the temperature question below, I do have suspicions about historic data and accuracy. Was the data actually measured to 0 1 degrees Fahrenheit (i assume not centigrade), and how good were the instruments and measurement process? Apologies if thus was covered in the videos; I am at a swimming pool...
Consensus is its a bit fishy. OTOH there's probably stacks of data, and the error must be overwhelmingly one way not the other, so you need to explain that.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
That’s a good point. Artistic translation will remain a human skill for a while, although TV show subtitles probably won’t take long.
That all said. My wife, as you know, speaks Russian. There’s already a cottage industry of TV and movie pirates in Russian-speaking countries, who can be uploading not just subtitled but dubbed media, within a day of release in the English-speaking world.
My assumption is that there’s a bunch of students from the language school, the drama school, and the media school, who watch the original, write the script, translate the script, get a group of actors to read the script, record the script, edit the voice recording back into the original programme, and have it uploaded onto pirate websites, all in a matter of hours.
There’s several of these groups out there, who compete on time and quality. It’s like the ‘90s OG English-speaking internet all over again, where forum collaboration on all sorts of mad stuff, just for the hell of it, was rife.
Unfortunately, I'd say that all of that is threatened, deeply, by AI, which will be able to do it in minutes
"How AI Is Revolutionizing Video Content Translation And Dubbing In 2023 And Beyond"
Incidentally I am not talking entirely about OTHER professions. My second job on the Knapper's Gazette will soon be in peril. This is happening, now
"German tabloid Bild cuts 200 jobs and says some roles will be replaced by AI
Publisher Axel Springer announces reorganisation of regional business and outlines plans for digital future
Germany’s Bild tabloid, the biggest-selling newspaper in Europe, has announced a €100m cost-cutting programme that will lead to about 200 redundancies, and warned staff that it expects to make further editorial cuts due to “the opportunities of artificial intelligence”.
Bild’s publisher, Axel Springer SE, said in an email to staff seen by the rival Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) newspaper that it would “unfortunately be parting ways with colleagues who have tasks that in the digital world are performed by AI and/or automated processes”"
LLM will allow the Daily Mail-ification of journalism across the board. Want to write 1000 articles a day in order to maximise the recurring hits on your website, now you don't need a massive staff of writers.
You just need take to input tweets from a select sources, LLM writes the article, low paid gopher quickly checks the copy, if its factually wrong, somebody will complain and you can fix it.
The AI generated Woke-drivel that got published in the Irish Times is a hefty straw in the wind
It shows that certain types of predictable articles - like Woke stuff in the Guardian - "Quantum physics is raicst and here's why" - or an Express shock horror Diana in a heatwave story - or a Daily Mail rant about migrants - can very easily be generated by ChatGPT already. To a publishable standard. This alone threatens thousands of journalistic jobs
Eventually you will be left with columnists with highly idiosyncratic styles, personal human stories of misery or joy, and some in-the-field reporting - war or travel
Everything else in journalism, it seems to me, can be automated. Sadly
Although, you would have thought with everything is on the internet, that would have killed the magazine industry. My understanding is a lot of specialist magazine (not those sort, the internet definitely killed those) do quite well, because they act as filter for the mountains of horseshit. Hence why the Spectator is doing well and there are still model train weekly and super-yachts monthly (I have no idea if they really are magazine titles).
LLM will only increase the noise, so perhaps there will still be opportunity for those that guarantee to provide high quality signal.
Lesson - If you want to dominate an industry - yes, line up the government, the unions and the other manufacturers. But it really, really helps to build some actual product.
I guess CCS will become the European standard though? Bit of a pain, it would have been good to have agreed a global standard.
Fortunately we don't have to align with the eu standard for uk bound cars....oh my a brexit benefit
So that's a benefit? There are three accepted aligned standards, North America, the EU and the Asian Pacific. Why would we want to plough our own furrow unless we are thinking of reintroducing the Morris Minor Traveller for the full 1950s effect?
From what I understand and no expert here just going by what people on here have said. Tesla is a better charging system.....who said anything about plowing our own furrow. Adapt the best charging system and people who want to drive their car abroad can get an adapter. The number of cars driven abroad are going to be a minority
Still don't understand why that might be a Brexit bonus. But any straw is worth clutching I guess.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
Good for her! I wish her well
She shoulda gone for Kyoto tho, to my mind. It's an incredible place to live, and experience, especially when young
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
That’s a good point. Artistic translation will remain a human skill for a while, although TV show subtitles probably won’t take long.
That all said. My wife, as you know, speaks Russian. There’s already a cottage industry of TV and movie pirates in Russian-speaking countries, who can be uploading not just subtitled but dubbed media, within a day of release in the English-speaking world.
My assumption is that there’s a bunch of students from the language school, the drama school, and the media school, who watch the original, write the script, translate the script, get a group of actors to read the script, record the script, edit the voice recording back into the original programme, and have it uploaded onto pirate websites, all in a matter of hours.
There’s several of these groups out there, who compete on time and quality. It’s like the ‘90s OG English-speaking internet all over again, where forum collaboration on all sorts of mad stuff, just for the hell of it, was rife.
There are two industries who are always first to embrace technological advancement. Adult industry and the pirates.
Oh indeed. That’s how VHS beat Betamax, and how mp3 beat whatever DRM crap Sony tried to push.
I now assume that OnlyFans must be either a CIA or FBI operation, to have not been shut down by the payment processors.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
That’s a good point. Artistic translation will remain a human skill for a while, although TV show subtitles probably won’t take long.
That all said. My wife, as you know, speaks Russian. There’s already a cottage industry of TV and movie pirates in Russian-speaking countries, who can be uploading not just subtitled but dubbed media, within a day of release in the English-speaking world.
My assumption is that there’s a bunch of students from the language school, the drama school, and the media school, who watch the original, write the script, translate the script, get a group of actors to read the script, record the script, edit the voice recording back into the original programme, and have it uploaded onto pirate websites, all in a matter of hours.
There’s several of these groups out there, who compete on time and quality. It’s like the ‘90s OG English-speaking internet all over again, where forum collaboration on all sorts of mad stuff, just for the hell of it, was rife.
There are two industries who are always first to embrace technological advancement. Adult industry and the pirates.
Yep, VR will take off when it makes VR sex seem real. Until then....
Incidentally I am not talking entirely about OTHER professions. My second job on the Knapper's Gazette will soon be in peril. This is happening, now
"German tabloid Bild cuts 200 jobs and says some roles will be replaced by AI
Publisher Axel Springer announces reorganisation of regional business and outlines plans for digital future
Germany’s Bild tabloid, the biggest-selling newspaper in Europe, has announced a €100m cost-cutting programme that will lead to about 200 redundancies, and warned staff that it expects to make further editorial cuts due to “the opportunities of artificial intelligence”.
Bild’s publisher, Axel Springer SE, said in an email to staff seen by the rival Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) newspaper that it would “unfortunately be parting ways with colleagues who have tasks that in the digital world are performed by AI and/or automated processes”"
LLM will allow the Daily Mail-ification of journalism across the board. Want to write 1000 articles a day in order to maximise the recurring hits on your website, now you don't need a massive staff of writers.
You just need take to input tweets from a select sources, LLM writes the article, low paid gopher quickly checks the copy, if its factually wrong, somebody will complain and you can fix it.
The AI generated Woke-drivel that got published in the Irish Times is a hefty straw in the wind
It shows that certain types of predictable articles - like Woke stuff in the Guardian - "Quantum physics is raicst and here's why" - or an Express shock horror Diana in a heatwave story - or a Daily Mail rant about migrants - can very easily be generated by ChatGPT already. To a publishable standard. This alone threatens thousands of journalistic jobs
Eventually you will be left with columnists with highly idiosyncratic styles, personal human stories of misery or joy, and some in-the-field reporting - war or travel
Everything else in journalism, it seems to me, can be automated. Sadly
ChatGPT might struggle with a bit of phone hacking though.
Seeing Rishi Sunak talking about getting therapists (did he mean hygienists?) to do dental work, it’s hard to escape the thought that he will be a disaster in a general election campaign.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
This is going well. That was unlucky. It is a good job that England bat deep. We'll get them when we field It looks like its going to rain, that will save us. Well 2-0 is recoverable We've lost but we've got two tests to avoid the whitewash It'll be a different story in Australia
Bazball, meet reality - you've managed to avoid one another for a year.
Bazball seems like one of @Leon's relationships, fast, exciting and short. Those of us that have been happily married for decades are much more attuned to conventional test match cricket. But it is fun whilst it lasts, no one can deny that.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
That’s a good point. Artistic translation will remain a human skill for a while, although TV show subtitles probably won’t take long.
That all said. My wife, as you know, speaks Russian. There’s already a cottage industry of TV and movie pirates in Russian-speaking countries, who can be uploading not just subtitled but dubbed media, within a day of release in the English-speaking world.
My assumption is that there’s a bunch of students from the language school, the drama school, and the media school, who watch the original, write the script, translate the script, get a group of actors to read the script, record the script, edit the voice recording back into the original programme, and have it uploaded onto pirate websites, all in a matter of hours.
There’s several of these groups out there, who compete on time and quality. It’s like the ‘90s OG English-speaking internet all over again, where forum collaboration on all sorts of mad stuff, just for the hell of it, was rife.
Unfortunately, I'd say that all of that is threatened, deeply, by AI, which will be able to do it in minutes
"How AI Is Revolutionizing Video Content Translation And Dubbing In 2023 And Beyond"
Oh of course - but I love the idea of dozens of students in Siberia or Kazakhstan watching a stream of the latest Western movie, and having their own version of it online hours later.
As @NickPalmer suggested, the actual studios will still have a human review things for a while yet, but the AI can do a good first draft.
The writers’ union are already on strike about AI in the States, and the actors’ union is probably not far behind. As with most technological innovation, it will move the majority of the reward to a very small minority of the industry.
Seeing Rishi Sunak talking about getting therapists (did he mean hygienists?) to do dental work, it’s hard to escape the thought that he will be a disaster in a general election campaign.
"When did you first start thinking you had toothache? Did you ever have a sexual proclivity for your mother's dentures?"
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
That’s a good point. Artistic translation will remain a human skill for a while, although TV show subtitles probably won’t take long.
That all said. My wife, as you know, speaks Russian. There’s already a cottage industry of TV and movie pirates in Russian-speaking countries, who can be uploading not just subtitled but dubbed media, within a day of release in the English-speaking world.
My assumption is that there’s a bunch of students from the language school, the drama school, and the media school, who watch the original, write the script, translate the script, get a group of actors to read the script, record the script, edit the voice recording back into the original programme, and have it uploaded onto pirate websites, all in a matter of hours.
There’s several of these groups out there, who compete on time and quality. It’s like the ‘90s OG English-speaking internet all over again, where forum collaboration on all sorts of mad stuff, just for the hell of it, was rife.
Unfortunately, I'd say that all of that is threatened, deeply, by AI, which will be able to do it in minutes
"How AI Is Revolutionizing Video Content Translation And Dubbing In 2023 And Beyond"
Yes but more significantly, it makes translation and dubbing available to everyone who could not previously afford it, from small Youtube content creators, to families who want to watch Hollywood films without speaking English.
Hmm. A knock-on effect might be a decline in English as lingua franca.
This is going well. That was unlucky. It is a good job that England bat deep. We'll get them when we field It looks like its going to rain, that will save us. Well 2-0 is recoverable We've lost but we've got two tests to avoid the whitewash It'll be a different story in Australia
Bazball, meet reality - you've managed to avoid one another for a year.
Bazball seems like one of @Leon's relationships, fast, exciting and short. Those of us that have been happily married for decades are much more attuned to conventional test match cricket. But it is fun whilst it lasts, no one can deny that.
If Oz end up with say, a lead of 450, England will be obliged to chase it (there is no more rain forecast for the weekend)
That at least will be exciting. They might as well Bazball it, and go for a record run chase
I imagine they will end up all out for about 189, but it will be a fun ride
This is going well. That was unlucky. It is a good job that England bat deep. We'll get them when we field It looks like its going to rain, that will save us. Well 2-0 is recoverable We've lost but we've got two tests to avoid the whitewash It'll be a different story in Australia
Bazball, meet reality - you've managed to avoid one another for a year.
Bazball seems like one of @Leon's relationships, fast, exciting and short. Those of us that have been happily married for decades are much more attuned to conventional test match cricket. But it is fun whilst it lasts, no one can deny that.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
Er, because there won't be any money in it? No one will pay for human translation, when they can get it cheaper and faster from machines? So it won't actually be "a career"?
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Diplomats and lawyers will still pay for a human interpreter, and I would probably still fork out the £100 it cost me to have a human translate the letter I sent to my future wife’s father, asking him for permission to marry his daughter.
But for everything else, you’re right.
Translating novels still needs the human touch. You don't get the flavour and naunce of the original otherwise.
That’s a good point. Artistic translation will remain a human skill for a while, although TV show subtitles probably won’t take long.
That all said. My wife, as you know, speaks Russian. There’s already a cottage industry of TV and movie pirates in Russian-speaking countries, who can be uploading not just subtitled but dubbed media, within a day of release in the English-speaking world.
My assumption is that there’s a bunch of students from the language school, the drama school, and the media school, who watch the original, write the script, translate the script, get a group of actors to read the script, record the script, edit the voice recording back into the original programme, and have it uploaded onto pirate websites, all in a matter of hours.
There’s several of these groups out there, who compete on time and quality. It’s like the ‘90s OG English-speaking internet all over again, where forum collaboration on all sorts of mad stuff, just for the hell of it, was rife.
Unfortunately, I'd say that all of that is threatened, deeply, by AI, which will be able to do it in minutes
"How AI Is Revolutionizing Video Content Translation And Dubbing In 2023 And Beyond"
Yes but more significantly, it makes translation and dubbing available to everyone who could not previously afford it, from small Youtube content creators, to families who want to watch Hollywood films without speaking English.
Hmm. A knock-on effect might be a decline in English as lingua franca.
Yes, might happen just in time to prevent the final triumph of global English, or globish, as even minor languages will be able to communicate.
This is going well. That was unlucky. It is a good job that England bat deep. We'll get them when we field It looks like its going to rain, that will save us. Well 2-0 is recoverable We've lost but we've got two tests to avoid the whitewash It'll be a different story in Australia
Bazball, meet reality - you've managed to avoid one another for a year.
Bazball seems like one of @Leon's relationships, fast, exciting and short. Those of us that have been happily married for decades are much more attuned to conventional test match cricket. But it is fun whilst it lasts, no one can deny that.
If Oz end up with say, a lead of 450, England will be obliged to chase it (there is no more rain forecast for the weekend)
That at least will be exciting. They might as well Bazball it, and go for a record run chase
I imagine they will end up all out for about 189, but it will be a fun ride
Yes, the last several matches have been exciting but the Aussies are just a bit too good to be bullied out of a game and can demonstrate why those old truisms had a lot of truth. Fun to watch though.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
This is going well. That was unlucky. It is a good job that England bat deep. We'll get them when we field It looks like its going to rain, that will save us. Well 2-0 is recoverable We've lost but we've got two tests to avoid the whitewash It'll be a different story in Australia
Bazball, meet reality - you've managed to avoid one another for a year.
This is going well. That was unlucky. It is a good job that England bat deep. We'll get them when we field It looks like its going to rain, that will save us. Well 2-0 is recoverable We've lost but we've got two tests to avoid the whitewash It'll be a different story in Australia
Bazball, meet reality - you've managed to avoid one another for a year.
Bazball seems like one of @Leon's relationships, fast, exciting and short. Those of us that have been happily married for decades are much more attuned to conventional test match cricket. But it is fun whilst it lasts, no one can deny that.
If Oz end up with say, a lead of 450, England will be obliged to chase it (there is no more rain forecast for the weekend)
That at least will be exciting. They might as well Bazball it, and go for a record run chase
I imagine they will end up all out for about 189, but it will be a fun ride
If the choice is to go out with an attempted slog to the boundary, or to go out to a timid defensive block that takes the outside edge and gets caught at second slip, then I say swing the bat.
This is going well. That was unlucky. It is a good job that England bat deep. We'll get them when we field It looks like its going to rain, that will save us. Well 2-0 is recoverable We've lost but we've got two tests to avoid the whitewash It'll be a different story in Australia
Bazball, meet reality - you've managed to avoid one another for a year.
Bazball seems like one of @Leon's relationships, fast, exciting and short. Those of us that have been happily married for decades are much more attuned to conventional test match cricket. But it is fun whilst it lasts, no one can deny that.
If Oz end up with say, a lead of 450, England will be obliged to chase it (there is no more rain forecast for the weekend)
That at least will be exciting. They might as well Bazball it, and go for a record run chase
I imagine they will end up all out for about 189, but it will be a fun ride
If the choice is to go out with an attempted slog to the boundary, or to go out to a timid defensive block that takes the outside edge and gets caught at second slip, then I say swing the bat.
Absolutely no point playing negatively. Series is over if we lose. Let's go for it!!!
Lesson - If you want to dominate an industry - yes, line up the government, the unions and the other manufacturers. But it really, really helps to build some actual product.
I guess CCS will become the European standard though? Bit of a pain, it would have been good to have agreed a global standard.
Fortunately we don't have to align with the eu standard for uk bound cars....oh my a brexit benefit
So that's a benefit? There are three accepted aligned standards, North America, the EU and the Asian Pacific. Why would we want to plough our own furrow unless we are thinking of reintroducing the Morris Minor Traveller for the full 1950s effect?
From what I understand and no expert here just going by what people on here have said. Tesla is a better charging system.....who said anything about plowing our own furrow. Adapt the best charging system and people who want to drive their car abroad can get an adapter. The number of cars driven abroad are going to be a minority
Still don't understand why that might be a Brexit bonus. But any straw is worth clutching I guess.
Is it better to do the very best thing (even at the price of doing different things to your neighbours) or do an OK thing that is consistent across a wider area?
There's no obvious universal answer there. It depends on the upside and downside. (Though the conservative instinct is to not change unless it's an abomination.)
Hence the pre- and post- Brexit debates. Some people think that fine-tuning the UK is worth the resulting boundary effects. Personally, I'm not convinced. What's not on is pretending that either side of the balance doesn't exist.
Seeing Rishi Sunak talking about getting therapists (did he mean hygienists?) to do dental work, it’s hard to escape the thought that he will be a disaster in a general election campaign.
Let's face it, we saw him against Liz Truss, and he lost the argument, albeit to a crowd that contained more than the normal level of howlers at the moon. It doesn't bode well.
Seeing Rishi Sunak talking about getting therapists (did he mean hygienists?) to do dental work, it’s hard to escape the thought that he will be a disaster in a general election campaign.
Let's face it, we saw him against Liz Truss, and he lost the argument, albeit to a crowd that contained more than the normal level of howlers at the moon. It doesn't bode well.
Most of them are so swiveleyed they probably didn't know where they were putting an X
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
I don't think it's entirely about "secretly wanting to" (though moderate exercise is pretty good for endorphins).
But drawing some strands together... The chain from overuse of fossil fuels to more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to bad and worsening climatic effects is pretty damn convincing. Science is never fully settled, sure, but the projections made in 1990 are coming in pretty well and they do not end in a good place.
There are going to be difficult choices to be made in decades to come. Hopefully improved tech can smooth off the sharper edges, but at an order-of-magnitude level, burning hydrocarbons at the rate we currently do in the West simply isn't on.
You need a better reason than "I don't want to".
I have not claimed climate change is untrue not sure where you got that from.
I don't own a car. If I go out I use a bus or train.
I fly rarely this year will be my third time in since 2000
I think I do my bit frankly so yes I don't want to ride a bike is perfectly valid for me to say so don't fucking lecture me about it because I am pretty sure I put a lot less carbon in the atmosphere than most of you cycling zealots
I mixed the personal and generic there, and I shouldn't have done. It doesn't alter my point that "we prefer it this way" isn't a sufficient reason to do things that are predictably spoiling life for future generations, but there were better targets for that critique. I should have taken time to be clear about that.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
Good for her. The number of people fluent in Welsh and Japanese but not English must be quite small. Has anyone noticed this gap in her CV? Even after Brexit it has its uses.
Comments
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
However there are dedicated machine translation models which are, apparently, better than ChatGPT4. And they all keep improving. It is one area where they will completely master the job, to all intents and purposes
Firstly efficiency, cars are an extremely efficient mode of transportation. Cars moving at 30 mph can move a lot more people through an area than bikes or other modes can do so while travelling much slower.
However its certainly possible to redesign things to allow more space for bikes, despite those being so much less efficient.
The road my kids school is off was until recently the local A-road to Liverpool, it had 2 lanes heading to Liverpool (1 away from it) at 30mph.
A dual carriageway recently opened which bypasses the town and so now cars can travel on the new A-road at 50mph.
The old A-road is now for local traffic only, 20mph and has 1 lane each way and a dedicated cycle path with a barrier between the cycle path and the cars.
As a result of this redesign, now more kids are riding their bike to school, which is good for them. Many fewer people are going through the road than before, as bike paths are so much less efficient than cars, but cars travelling a distance are going faster by using the dedicated dual carriageway instead.
So by sprawling out the cars can go faster and we can have dedicated bike paths too, win-win.
This does of course require the use of more space to create the extra dual-carriageway, but a lot of towns have extra space available around them, if only the political will can be found to actually use that space and spread the town out rather than trying to cram everything into a limited space.
A heavy and deflating defeat
Had that not occurred to you? I guess not
Rain
I've seen something similar in this area. Both Google and Microsoft sometimes use private buses to move groups of their employees from one location to another. (The buses look much nicer than those used by the public transit authorities.)
And some old-folks places here advertise that they have regular bus services for groups, and a few advertise that they have electric cars that residents can check out (for, I assume, a small fee).
All of these seem like reasonable solutions. What has not worked out here is light rail; the costs are so high, and the benefits go to a few -- who are heavily subsidized by the taxpayers.
Also, "a measurable quantity has dropped from 98.6 to 98.5" but human bodies and core temperatures is semantic content. Explaining the thing ain't semantics.
Sometimes? It's all the time, dude.
At least in my humble Seattle hood, every weekday morning see at least one parked - often hogging Metro bus stops - picking up techies who have NOT yet made it big, and moved out to the burbs.
If I were to take a guess, I might think that a number of unofficial lenders and scummy car dealers might spring up in outer London, looking to sell overpriced cars on credit to people left with no choice.
As a general political point, it’s been interesting to watch from afar, that those politicians who would traditionally look out for the poorest in society, now regularly place green issues higher than many of their constituents.
ast Cliff and Springbourne (Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole) council by-election result:
GRN: 38.4% (+13.4)
CON: 28.8% (+3.5)
LAB: 27.7% (-1.4)
LDEM: 5.1% (-2.1)
No Ind (-13.4) as prev.
Votes cast: 2,129
Green GAIN from Labour.
But for everything else, you’re right.
For example, my local hospital generates approx 2.4 million trips per annum, and the local Macarthur Glen generates more. No idea how many trips local town centres generate.
And the wonder of bus timetables is setting them up to catch a enough journeys to justify the service.
And people are a spectrum too.
Personally my choice 10 years ago was to live within walking distance of my town centre, as I know that I may eventually lose part of my eyesight (Diabetes) so I need to be able to live without a car. Quite a chunk of the population have a similar set of circumstances.
I was not asserting its true, mere offering a hypothesis
Just want to make sure PBers do NOT miss it.
Judging by the quite large number of collisions and serious injuries in the States, we will need a more uniform environment.
Though there will be fewer out and out idiots than amongst human drivers.
This chap (BMW driver) nearly followed his Sat Nav off a cliff.
https://www.theregister.com/2009/03/25/satnav_mishap/
I have joined the Green Party and will be actively helping them get out the SKS protest vote in Chesterfield.
Blair lost Chesterfield for Lab twice to the protest Party which was Kennedys LDs hopefully history repeats itself
I was just googling machine translation. It seems the main effect has been a lowering of hourly rates (for human translators), and the disappearance of easier work. And this is an accelerating trend
So it seems there will be a fairly long period when machines and humans both do the job, but the machines will generally take over everything - until human translators are really rare, perhaps even status symbols? (for politicians and diplomats and billionaires)
I remember years ago saying human translators would become like fountain pens, or horses. Once used by everyone, now used by a small subset of people who want to look flash, or because they are rich and enjoy riding for fun, and so forth, or because there is some really unique demand (human calligraphy in special documents and the like)
I reckon the same will apply to many careers in the knowledge economy. The human element will become a rarity, but it will be prized at the very high end. But a shedload of jobs will simply vanish
"German tabloid Bild cuts 200 jobs and says some roles will be replaced by AI
Publisher Axel Springer announces reorganisation of regional business and outlines plans for digital future
Germany’s Bild tabloid, the biggest-selling newspaper in Europe, has announced a €100m cost-cutting programme that will lead to about 200 redundancies, and warned staff that it expects to make further editorial cuts due to “the opportunities of artificial intelligence”.
Bild’s publisher, Axel Springer SE, said in an email to staff seen by the rival Frankfurter Allgemeine (FAZ) newspaper that it would “unfortunately be parting ways with colleagues who have tasks that in the digital world are performed by AI and/or automated processes”"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/20/german-tabloid-bild-to-replace-range-of-editorial-jobs-with-ai
From Hawaii earlier this year . . . twice in one month . . . at same place . . .
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/05/02/tourists-mistakenly-drive-suv-into-hawaii-island-harbor/
https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2023/05/30/witness-another-tourist-following-gps-directions-drives-car-into-hawaii-harbor/
You just need take to input tweets from a select sources, LLM writes the article, low paid gopher quickly checks the copy, if its factually wrong, somebody will complain and you can fix it.
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
https://www.politico.eu/article/translators-translation-european-union-eu-autmation-machine-learning-ai-artificial-intelligence-translators-jobs/
That all said. My wife, as you know, speaks Russian. There’s already a cottage industry of TV and movie pirates in Russian-speaking countries, who can be uploading not just subtitled but dubbed media, within a day of release in the English-speaking world.
My assumption is that there’s a bunch of students from the language school, the drama school, and the media school, who watch the original, write the script, translate the script, get a group of actors to read the script, record the script, edit the voice recording back into the original programme, and have it uploaded onto pirate websites, all in a matter of hours.
There’s several of these groups out there, who compete on time and quality. It’s like the ‘90s OG English-speaking internet all over again, where forum collaboration on all sorts of mad stuff, just for the hell of it, was rife.
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/may/14/irish-times-apologises-for-hoax-ai-article-about-womens-use-of-fake-tan
It shows that certain types of predictable articles - like Woke stuff in the Guardian - "Quantum physics is raicst and here's why" - or an Express shock horror Diana in a heatwave story - or a Daily Mail rant about migrants - can very easily be generated by ChatGPT already. To a publishable standard. This alone threatens thousands of journalistic jobs
Eventually you will be left with columnists with highly idiosyncratic styles, personal human stories of misery or joy, and some in-the-field reporting - war or travel
Everything else in journalism, it seems to me, can be automated. Sadly
Love it !
When will the adult industry receive due reward for its eager, nay, thrusting penetration into technological innovations?
"How AI Is Revolutionizing Video Content Translation And Dubbing In 2023 And Beyond"
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2023/02/03/how-ai-is-revolutionizing-video-content-translation-and-dubbing-in-2023-and-beyond/?sh=22532aa72792
LLM will only increase the noise, so perhaps there will still be opportunity for those that guarantee to provide high quality signal.
She shoulda gone for Kyoto tho, to my mind. It's an incredible place to live, and experience, especially when young
I now assume that OnlyFans must be either a CIA or FBI operation, to have not been shut down by the payment processors.
As @NickPalmer suggested, the actual studios will still have a human review things for a while yet, but the AI can do a good first draft.
The writers’ union are already on strike about AI in the States, and the actors’ union is probably not far behind. As with most technological innovation, it will move the majority of the reward to a very small minority of the industry.
Hmm. A knock-on effect might be a decline in English as lingua franca.
That at least will be exciting. They might as well Bazball it, and go for a record run chase
I imagine they will end up all out for about 189, but it will be a fun ride
There's no obvious universal answer there. It depends on the upside and downside. (Though the conservative instinct is to not change unless it's an abomination.)
Hence the pre- and post- Brexit debates. Some people think that fine-tuning the UK is worth the resulting boundary effects. Personally, I'm not convinced. What's not on is pretending that either side of the balance doesn't exist.
Apologies, @Pagan2