Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

No seat is safe: Tory by-election defences – politicalbetting.com

1234579

Comments

  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,839

    Can someone do a big rain dance for tomorrow in London?

    Estimated probability of rain in London tomorrow, according to forecasts:

    Met Office: <5%
    BBC Weather: 0%

    Not convinced that donning robes and prancing around in a sacred circle will change this. Might be fun though.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 34,663

    RobD said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Farooq said:

    Pagan2 said:

    stodge said:

    Pagan2 said:

    stodge said:

    Pagan2 said:

    darkage said:

    The irony about this outburst about the 4 day week is that the civil service have been allowing staff to do flexi time and compressed hours for at least the last 20 years. It is very common across the public sector.

    Whose outburst? I missed it - been driving all day.
    Probably mine but the outburst wasnt about compressed hours it was about south cambridgeshire which is doing a trial on staff working 80% of the time for 100% of the wage.

    My view was simple if productivity hasnt fallen then they were slacking 20% of the time if they can do the same work in 80% of the time
    That betrays a strange understanding of how people work and what makes them most efficient and productive.

    Nobody with whom I've ever worked (and I include myself) works 100% of the time. The brain requires breaks, diversions - indeed, one of the issues with WFH has been the absence of those diversions. Indeed, I'd go further and offer the thought the more people work the less productive they are.

    The Anglo-Saxon long hours culture is partly predicated on a notion if you work longer you get more done. The other part is the notion of management by attendance - if your manager can see you working you must be working and if you must be working you must be productive. That simply empowers inadequate management.

    You could probably reduce the working week to 25 hours without a huge impact in productivity and efficiency - presumably with AI (sorry @Leon) that might be an option.

    Putting it another way - why do less with more when you can do more with less?
    I call bollocks on this tbh. I say this because most of my life I have worked in an office. Since WFH my productivity has increased at least twofold as I dont get fucking idiots wanting to socialize and chat to me all the time. Thankfully I don't need to deal with those c**ts now.

    Many seem to see work as a social experience, a place to make friends, find partners...oh and sometimes they do a little work
    I've also spent most of my working life in an office and the attitude you have to work and colleagues is one I've seen but very rarely. Most people are happy to have a "social" element to the workplace (after all, we spend a good proportion of our lives there). There's always room for "Mr Grumpy" to sit in the corner...

    Where I do agree is the productivity rise caused by WfH. I worked from home before it became fashionable and I agree you can be much more productive though I'd argue your effectiveness declines over time without a distraction or two to force a mental reset.

    We now have organisations wanting their staff back in the office and expecting WfH levels of productivity and wondering why it isn't happening.
    Sorry I don't goto work to make friends, I have my own friends outside work. I don't care about you whatsoever I am only in your company because I work with you. I don't want to be your friend or lover. I don't care about your football team, I don't want to hear about what you did on the weekend, nor the latest conspiracy theory you bought into. You are not my friend, you will never be my friend so keep your personal life away from me. Harsh yes but why would I ever want to socialise with anyone I work with. I change jobs every 2 to 3 years. You are as ephemeral as a mayfly
    You sound like a right dick
    Shrugs why because I don't want to mix socially with people I work with? Why the fuck should it be expected of me. It is you that sounds like the complete dick enforcing your views I should like these people. They are random people. I get a job we come together to work why am I a complete dick for saying I have no other connection to them?
    It’s not expected of you, but you seem to be closed to the prospect of it entirely. Who knows, some of your colleagues might actually be nice people who you’d like to socialise with after work.
    I actually married a work colleague from our Edinburgh Office in 1964, and next year we celebrate our diamond wedding anniversary !!!!
    Nice one!

    Thinking about it, I met Mrs P at work - her work at least.

    She was a nurse on the ward I was a patient on.
  • pm215pm215 Posts: 1,130


    If you're some sort experienced, motivated, know-exactly-what-you're-doing lone wolf you can probably keep going indefinitely on your own when WFH, but trying to incorporate new team members and collaborate on new projects across a wide range of people just doesn't seem to work very well remotely. I'm not saying it's impossible and can't be done, but it is an area where some face-to-face time is actually beneficial.

    I suspect something of a bathtub curve, where:

    * those new to the workforce are more in favour of at least some in office time because they benefit from the ad-hoc training, mentoring and network-building that happens more easily face-to-face
    * those a bit further along in their career are least happy with in-office and most in favour of wfh, as they've already gained enough skills to be largely self-sufficient and have shouldered responsibilities and workload that means they value the "get your head down and get the work done" the wfh environment can make easier
    * as you get more senior again your job has more of the team leading, mentorship, collaboration aspects and balance shifts back to favouring at least some in-office work
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,714

    Visegrád 24
    @visegrad24
    ·
    9m
    Please make sure to use your daily ration of tweets on Visegrad24 tweets!
  • RobDRobD Posts: 59,928


    Visegrád 24
    @visegrad24
    ·
    9m
    Please make sure to use your daily ration of tweets on Visegrad24 tweets!

    You can only read a certain number of tweets per day? Wow.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,652
    ydoethur said:

    EPG said:

    It's not just Rees-Mogg or old-fashioned bosses - practically all the major multinational companies are moving toward requiring more onsite time. Identifying the reasons why may be more enlightening than fretting about council staff. Maybe all of them know less about labour productivity than PB comments, but doubt it.

    Or alternatively, all of their managers are nervous about being seen to be no use.
    As I wrote, it is indeed possible that PB comments has secretly solved human resources management without telling anyone, but I wanted to focus on the possibility that they hadn't.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,357
    Andy_JS said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    ohnotnow said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/minister-tells-council-to-immediately-end-four-day-week-experiment-over-value-for-money-concerns-12912909

    "A minister has ordered a local council to end its experiment with a four-day week "immediately" over concerns about the "value for money" for local taxpayers.

    South Cambridgeshire District Council, the first local authority in the UK to undertake such a trial, had announced plans to extend it until April.

    Local government minister Lee Rowley wrote to Liberal Democrat council leader Bridget Smith to "ask that you end your experiment immediately" and say he had concerns about the "value for money" for local taxpayers.

    ...

    "There is no good reason to end this trial, which is already bringing many benefits to council workers, local residents and saving the council money."

    Council leader Ms Smith replied to request a meeting with ministers to discuss the matter, saying independently reviewed data showed "performance was maintained at the level shortly before the trial, while some areas of performance data saw significant improvement compared to recent data."

    Perhaps a 4 day week should be accompanied by an equivalent reduction in council tax.
    I think the objection is to the trial for tax payers that working hours were cut by 20% but wages are still at 100%, so basically a 20% pay rise for all those workers
    Yep but if productivity is the same as before and customer satisfaction is equal or better what exactly is the problem?

    And from what I've read both of the above seem to be true - and other places have shown similar results..
    The only way productivity can remain the same though is if they were wasting 20% of their working time doing stuff other than what they were being paid too.

    Example Someone working on a council tax enquiry line, lets say each enquiry takes 10 minutes on average to resolve. Now there is no way you can make that faster. So under a 5 day week they would have done 40 * 6 = 240 calls. On a 4 day week they can do a maximum of 32*6 calls for 192.

    Now if after each call they were spending a few minutes gassing with colleagues and now they don't and just do them back to back yes productivity can remain the same. However the answer is not reduce the working days but reduce the skiving off.

    I went down slough council offices a couple of times when I lived there and you could see it in action. They would call a number, deal with a client then spend a few minutes chatting to the colleague beside them before calling another number. It was bloody infuriating.

    A lot of things you cannot do faster so I am sorry no I don't believe productivity is the same just that they were poorly managed. Now in a trial I am sure they will give it their all to show productivity doesn't drop. Who wouldn't to keep a 4 day week....however once the 4 day week is embedded and accepted I fully expect them to return to dallying between tasks.

    This is not just a public sector issue you see the same in the private sector, people scrolling on their phones when they are meant to be doing what they are paid for etc or chatting round the coffee machine.
    When did it become okay for people to use their personal phones while doing a job? I'm sure it wasn't allowed in most jobs when phones first became available.
    They would be when work asked you to install software on your phone to do your job, like generating authentication codes to log in to stuff. They're getting gratis use of my personal possession.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,580

    RobD said:

    Pagan2 said:

    Farooq said:

    Pagan2 said:

    stodge said:

    Pagan2 said:

    stodge said:

    Pagan2 said:

    darkage said:

    The irony about this outburst about the 4 day week is that the civil service have been allowing staff to do flexi time and compressed hours for at least the last 20 years. It is very common across the public sector.

    Whose outburst? I missed it - been driving all day.
    Probably mine but the outburst wasnt about compressed hours it was about south cambridgeshire which is doing a trial on staff working 80% of the time for 100% of the wage.

    My view was simple if productivity hasnt fallen then they were slacking 20% of the time if they can do the same work in 80% of the time
    That betrays a strange understanding of how people work and what makes them most efficient and productive.

    Nobody with whom I've ever worked (and I include myself) works 100% of the time. The brain requires breaks, diversions - indeed, one of the issues with WFH has been the absence of those diversions. Indeed, I'd go further and offer the thought the more people work the less productive they are.

    The Anglo-Saxon long hours culture is partly predicated on a notion if you work longer you get more done. The other part is the notion of management by attendance - if your manager can see you working you must be working and if you must be working you must be productive. That simply empowers inadequate management.

    You could probably reduce the working week to 25 hours without a huge impact in productivity and efficiency - presumably with AI (sorry @Leon) that might be an option.

    Putting it another way - why do less with more when you can do more with less?
    I call bollocks on this tbh. I say this because most of my life I have worked in an office. Since WFH my productivity has increased at least twofold as I dont get fucking idiots wanting to socialize and chat to me all the time. Thankfully I don't need to deal with those c**ts now.

    Many seem to see work as a social experience, a place to make friends, find partners...oh and sometimes they do a little work
    I've also spent most of my working life in an office and the attitude you have to work and colleagues is one I've seen but very rarely. Most people are happy to have a "social" element to the workplace (after all, we spend a good proportion of our lives there). There's always room for "Mr Grumpy" to sit in the corner...

    Where I do agree is the productivity rise caused by WfH. I worked from home before it became fashionable and I agree you can be much more productive though I'd argue your effectiveness declines over time without a distraction or two to force a mental reset.

    We now have organisations wanting their staff back in the office and expecting WfH levels of productivity and wondering why it isn't happening.
    Sorry I don't goto work to make friends, I have my own friends outside work. I don't care about you whatsoever I am only in your company because I work with you. I don't want to be your friend or lover. I don't care about your football team, I don't want to hear about what you did on the weekend, nor the latest conspiracy theory you bought into. You are not my friend, you will never be my friend so keep your personal life away from me. Harsh yes but why would I ever want to socialise with anyone I work with. I change jobs every 2 to 3 years. You are as ephemeral as a mayfly
    You sound like a right dick
    Shrugs why because I don't want to mix socially with people I work with? Why the fuck should it be expected of me. It is you that sounds like the complete dick enforcing your views I should like these people. They are random people. I get a job we come together to work why am I a complete dick for saying I have no other connection to them?
    It’s not expected of you, but you seem to be closed to the prospect of it entirely. Who knows, some of your colleagues might actually be nice people who you’d like to socialise with after work.
    I actually married a work colleague from our Edinburgh Office in 1964, and next year we celebrate our diamond wedding anniversary !!!!
    Nice one!

    Thinking about it, I met Mrs P at work - her work at least.

    She was a nurse on the ward I was a patient on.
    I was technically Mrs J's boss (project manager) at the place we met. She's now my boss. ;)

    I think were were destined to be together: the company was a startup, and when I first joined there were not enough phone lines on the switchboards. Therefore I shared a number with this rather pleasant Turkish lass, and fielded calls from her then-boyfriend....
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    Farooq said:

    darkage said:

    What I would say about Council's is that if you are good at your job and start working too fast then they let you know and ask you to slow down. However this is not just Councils. It is similar in the private sector, where you get asked to stretch out projects to earn more money for the company. In my experience there are very few work situations which are entirely driven by trying maximise productivity in any objective sense.

    I've worked in both the public and private sector, and, in most of my placings, I've been extremely efficient.

    I have never, ever, not even once, been told to slow down. Even when I worked as a consultant where it's clearly in my company's interests to fill in time. Never.
    TBF, we don’t know how slow you are, though…
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,714
    Please make it stop...



    Will Hazell
    @whazell
    Exclusive @Telegraph

    : Liz Truss is to take her agenda global with the launch of a new international taskforce - The Growth Commission - to investigate the causes of sluggish growth
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631

    I know it won't happen but, ffs, if England somehow contrive to win from here we are NEVER going to hear the end of it from Leon- 'I was there!' -damus.

    I was at Headingley in 2019 I rarely mention it.

    I was at Anfield for the 4 nil against Barca and the 7 nil against Man U and I hardly ever mention those either.
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,705

    Andy_JS said:

    Pagan2 said:

    eek said:

    Pagan2 said:

    ohnotnow said:

    https://news.sky.com/story/minister-tells-council-to-immediately-end-four-day-week-experiment-over-value-for-money-concerns-12912909

    "A minister has ordered a local council to end its experiment with a four-day week "immediately" over concerns about the "value for money" for local taxpayers.

    South Cambridgeshire District Council, the first local authority in the UK to undertake such a trial, had announced plans to extend it until April.

    Local government minister Lee Rowley wrote to Liberal Democrat council leader Bridget Smith to "ask that you end your experiment immediately" and say he had concerns about the "value for money" for local taxpayers.

    ...

    "There is no good reason to end this trial, which is already bringing many benefits to council workers, local residents and saving the council money."

    Council leader Ms Smith replied to request a meeting with ministers to discuss the matter, saying independently reviewed data showed "performance was maintained at the level shortly before the trial, while some areas of performance data saw significant improvement compared to recent data."

    Perhaps a 4 day week should be accompanied by an equivalent reduction in council tax.
    I think the objection is to the trial for tax payers that working hours were cut by 20% but wages are still at 100%, so basically a 20% pay rise for all those workers
    Yep but if productivity is the same as before and customer satisfaction is equal or better what exactly is the problem?

    And from what I've read both of the above seem to be true - and other places have shown similar results..
    The only way productivity can remain the same though is if they were wasting 20% of their working time doing stuff other than what they were being paid too.

    Example Someone working on a council tax enquiry line, lets say each enquiry takes 10 minutes on average to resolve. Now there is no way you can make that faster. So under a 5 day week they would have done 40 * 6 = 240 calls. On a 4 day week they can do a maximum of 32*6 calls for 192.

    Now if after each call they were spending a few minutes gassing with colleagues and now they don't and just do them back to back yes productivity can remain the same. However the answer is not reduce the working days but reduce the skiving off.

    I went down slough council offices a couple of times when I lived there and you could see it in action. They would call a number, deal with a client then spend a few minutes chatting to the colleague beside them before calling another number. It was bloody infuriating.

    A lot of things you cannot do faster so I am sorry no I don't believe productivity is the same just that they were poorly managed. Now in a trial I am sure they will give it their all to show productivity doesn't drop. Who wouldn't to keep a 4 day week....however once the 4 day week is embedded and accepted I fully expect them to return to dallying between tasks.

    This is not just a public sector issue you see the same in the private sector, people scrolling on their phones when they are meant to be doing what they are paid for etc or chatting round the coffee machine.
    When did it become okay for people to use their personal phones while doing a job? I'm sure it wasn't allowed in most jobs when phones first became available.
    They would be when work asked you to install software on your phone to do your job, like generating authentication codes to log in to stuff. They're getting gratis use of my personal possession.
    I share your frustration on that one.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,821
    pigeon said:


    Estimated probability of rain in London tomorrow, according to forecasts:

    Met Office: 5%
    BBC Weather: 0%

    Not convinced that donning robes and prancing around in a sacred circle will change this. Might be fun though.

    We can dance if we want to!

    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x811f9t
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 10,759

    Please make it stop...



    Will Hazell
    @whazell
    Exclusive @Telegraph

    : Liz Truss is to take her agenda global with the launch of a new international taskforce - The Growth Commission - to investigate the causes of sluggish growth

    Nuts.

    It's not the case that everything she ever said was wrong. It is the case that she has so maligned her own wisdom that she will be forever wrong.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,218
    RobD said:


    Visegrád 24
    @visegrad24
    ·
    9m
    Please make sure to use your daily ration of tweets on Visegrad24 tweets!

    You can only read a certain number of tweets per day? Wow.
    Twitter has applied a temporary limit to the number of tweets users can read in a day, owner Elon Musk has said.

    In a tweet, Mr Musk said unverified accounts can read up to 600 posts a day.

    Verified accounts are limited to reading 6,000 posts a day, while newly unverified accounts can only see 300 posts per day, he added.

    Mr Musk said the temporary limits were to address "extreme levels" of data scraping and system manipulation.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-66077195
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,717

    pigeon said:


    Estimated probability of rain in London tomorrow, according to forecasts:

    Met Office: 5%
    BBC Weather: 0%

    Not convinced that donning robes and prancing around in a sacred circle will change this. Might be fun though.

    We can dance if we want to!

    https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x811f9t
    on pin heads usually

  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,357
    RobD said:


    Visegrád 24
    @visegrad24
    ·
    9m
    Please make sure to use your daily ration of tweets on Visegrad24 tweets!

    You can only read a certain number of tweets per day? Wow.
    "Kama
    @Kama_Kamilia
    TWITTER USER #1884639. PLEASE VISIT YOUR LOCAL TWITTER COMMISSARIAT TO RECEIVE YOUR DAILY TWITTER RATION. TWITTER RATIONS ARE NOT A LEGAL TENDER AND CANNOT BE SOLD NOR TRADED. GLORY TO OUR OMNIPRESENT CHAIRMAN AND COMRADE MELON BUSK.
    "

    Not linking to it so that you won't use up any of your twitter ration on it.

    Wonder what hour of the day Scott will run out by?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    kle4 said:

    33.3 Making a catch

    The act of making a catch shall start from the time when the ball first comes into contact with a fielder’s person and shall end when a fielder obtains complete control over both the ball and his/her own movement.


    Wasn't aware of this.

    Well, yes.
    If, for example, you jump to catch the ball in the air, you catch it, and your movement takes you across the boundary, it’s a six. I thought everyone knew that ?

    Hence the recentish trend to throw the ball back up, run back inside the boundary, and catch it again.
  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019
    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,860
    Leon said:

    IanB2 said:

    Meanwhile, after five days, the perfect weather day arrives in Norway. For some inexplicable reason the dog didn’t make it into this one.

    Beautiful!

    Where exactly?
    Ulvik
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,705
    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    It'd be ironic if it resulted in twitter posters going back to the old "I've actually only got a limited number of characters to play with here" posting mentality, as opposed to "even though there's a character limit I can just string together a large number of tweets to get my essay out".
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    I think of reactivating my MySpace account.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,956
    ..
    Farooq said:

    What stage are we at on Farooq’s copium model?

    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</p>
    You unaccountably left out:

    Cheating Aussies therefore we have the moral victory.
  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019

    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    I think of reactivating my MySpace account.
    That was purged a decade ago.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,357
    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    The thing that strikes me is that the small number of people he kept employed at the company can't tell the difference between someone doom-scrolling their twitter feed and a bot scraping the website, so instead they're implementing a crude limit on activity for all accounts.

    And yet he's certain that it's bots scraping the website. Right.

    Either he's telling the truth, in which case they're incompetent, or he's lying and incompetent.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,717
    Anyone know how to watch Wimbledon abroad in Europe?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    Foss said:

    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    I think of reactivating my MySpace account.
    That was purged a decade ago.
    I've brought back MySpace, after a fashion with my new profile pic.
  • If i'm not much mistaken, the new restrictions on access to twitter have helped reduced the violence in France so far today.

    If that's true, then very good.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385
    geoffw said:

    Anyone know how to watch Wimbledon abroad in Europe?

    This should tell you:

    https://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/atoz/tv_schedules.html
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,357
    My twitter ration is being used up reading tweets complaining about the twitter ration from the people I follow on twitter.
  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019

    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    The thing that strikes me is that the small number of people he kept employed at the company can't tell the difference between someone doom-scrolling their twitter feed and a bot scraping the website, so instead they're implementing a crude limit on activity for all accounts.

    And yet he's certain that it's bots scraping the website. Right.

    Either he's telling the truth, in which case they're incompetent, or he's lying and incompetent.
    We know that this time last year they were developing/testing on production. It’s not unreasonable to assume that the Ops side of things were/are just as messed up.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,357
    eek said:

    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    The thing that strikes me is that the small number of people he kept employed at the company can't tell the difference between someone doom-scrolling their twitter feed and a bot scraping the website, so instead they're implementing a crude limit on activity for all accounts.

    And yet he's certain that it's bots scraping the website. Right.

    Either he's telling the truth, in which case they're incompetent, or he's lying and incompetent.
    Twitter was using a fair amount of Google's services for hosting (remember at the scale of twitter you don't have many options and it's cheaper to co-locate edge servers then do stuff in house).

    And guess when the old contract with Google ran out (yesterday), guess who owes Google a large sum of money and guess whose project to move services from google back in house is running late,
    Doesn't surprise me. But, of course, blame it on "bots".
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,717
    ydoethur said:

    geoffw said:

    Anyone know how to watch Wimbledon abroad in Europe?

    This should tell you:

    https://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/atoz/tv_schedules.html
    Tx

  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,357
    geoffw said:

    Anyone know how to watch Wimbledon abroad in Europe?

    I use Proton VPN so that the BBC will let me listen to TMS. I would assume that a VPN would persuade the BBC that you were in country and could watch the tennis on iPlayer.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070

    My twitter ration is being used up reading tweets complaining about the twitter ration from the people I follow on twitter.

    Elon porting the Tesla range anxiety feature to Twitter ?
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,784
    If anyone is after some entertainment while twitter is gubbed - I came across this earlier :

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOc2MzvqbN0

    "Prince - Jazz Funk Sessions 1977 Instrumental".
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385
    edited July 2023

    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    The thing that strikes me is that the small number of people he kept employed at the company can't tell the difference between someone doom-scrolling their twitter feed and a bot scraping the website, so instead they're implementing a crude limit on activity for all accounts.

    And yet he's certain that it's bots scraping the website. Right.

    Either he's telling the truth, in which case they're incompetent, or he's lying and incompetent.
    There are three further options.

    He's telling what he believes to be the truth, but is wrong, because either he hasn't been told the truth or he doesn't understand it.

    So he could be mistaken and incompetent or stupid and incompetent.

    Or, of course, he could have been told a pack of lies but lied about what he's been told.

    So he could be lying, stupid, mistaken and incompetent.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,892
    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    300 messages is less than half the daily ration of pb posts. It sounds high but is quite low.

    But as I posted earlier, what Elon Musk has done does not fit with what users reported. There were partial outages long after the supposed fix. Likely something else broke.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    Well this is annoying.

    Looks like you cannot embed Tweets into Wordpress sites.

    PB runs on Wordpress so no more Tweets in thread headers.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385

    Well this is annoying.

    Looks like you cannot embed Tweets into Wordpress sites.

    PB runs on Wordpress so no more Tweets in thread headers.

    Screenshots?
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Possible by-election coming up in Tamworth.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,580
    eek said:

    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    The thing that strikes me is that the small number of people he kept employed at the company can't tell the difference between someone doom-scrolling their twitter feed and a bot scraping the website, so instead they're implementing a crude limit on activity for all accounts.

    And yet he's certain that it's bots scraping the website. Right.

    Either he's telling the truth, in which case they're incompetent, or he's lying and incompetent.
    Twitter was using a fair amount of Google's services for hosting (remember at the scale of twitter you don't have many options and it's cheaper to co-locate edge servers then do stuff in house).

    And guess when the old contract with Google ran out (yesterday), guess who owes Google a large sum of money and guess whose project to move services from google back in house is running late,
    As ever, Musk lies.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    ydoethur said:

    Well this is annoying.

    Looks like you cannot embed Tweets into Wordpress sites.

    PB runs on Wordpress so no more Tweets in thread headers.

    Screenshots?
    Might be an option.

    Although somebody else says this is a temporary glitch.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385
    edited July 2023

    Possible by-election coming up in Tamworth.

    Have the Tories picked a replacement? If not, I do hope they pick an outside candidate. Pincher has a nest of friends in the local party there who are even more predatory than he is.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,357

    Well this is annoying.

    Looks like you cannot embed Tweets into Wordpress sites.

    PB runs on Wordpress so no more Tweets in thread headers.

    If he stops websites like the Guardian embedding tweets then it would be the end of journalism as we know it. And the only way he can stop people cheating and reading more tweets than their ration.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,652
    pigeon said:

    I know I spend quite a lot of my time on here bemoaning the state's excessive devotion to the needs and wishes of the minted elderly - but by no means all people of pensionable age fall into that category, of course. Tales of woe from those condemned to work til they drop, such is this lady:

    Dee, 67, who lives in Accrington in Lancashire, left school at 14. She worked in factories, hairdressing shops and bars, and did secretarial temp work all over the country before she took a job at HM Revenue and Customs, where she worked full-time for 23 years.

    Last year, in May, she began her retirement, but after only a few weeks she realised that she could not afford it because of the rising cost of living. “I had two months off, then I had to return to work,” she says. “I rent my home and I can survive on my state pension of around £800 a month and two small private pensions, but I cannot live. My rent and household bills alone come to just under £700.”


    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jul/01/its-exhausting-but-i-think-im-going-to-have-to-keep-working-the-over-65s-who-cant-afford-to-retire

    I freely admit that, ever since we paid off the mortgage, the entire aim of my working life has been to start running down the number of hours I'm forced to work as soon as possible. You can try to construct a rationale for why your work is important - I do a good job, it improves the functioning of my employer's business, and that helps to make it more likely that other people as well as me will keep their jobs and prosper - but at root there's no intrinsic value to the work that most of us do. It's done because we have to, of course, we would give it up at the drop of a hat if we won a large enough lottery prize, and the sooner that we don't have to bother anymore, the better. Dragging yourself out at an anti-social time in the morning to spend long hours in and office, or a factory, or driving round and round all over the place, is simply tedious, and knackering, and must start to erode years off your life expectancy as you get older and less capable of putting up with the relentless grind of it all.

    I feel very sorry for people who simply cannot afford to stop, and there are going to be more and more of them in the future. Thinking about the low quality of defined contribution pensions and the excruciatingly high rents than anybody who can't afford to buy a home is going to have to keep paying for their entire lives, you have to expect that the proportion of the elderly population hobbling through their 70s and 80s in the workplace is bound to rise with the passing of the years.

    Of course winning the lottery would be worthless if nobody worked in exchange for your millions, suggesting that they are indeed doing something of value, if not that they have to like it.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385

    ydoethur said:

    Well this is annoying.

    Looks like you cannot embed Tweets into Wordpress sites.

    PB runs on Wordpress so no more Tweets in thread headers.

    Screenshots?
    Might be an option.

    Although somebody else says this is a temporary glitch.
    It would seem rather stupid to push tweets out of Wordpress sites, given how many business websites - including mine - rely on it. It would definitely weaken their reach.

    But - since when has Musk acted sensibly?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401

    Possible by-election coming up in Tamworth.

    Chris Pincher?
    What's he done now?
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,784
    ydoethur said:

    EPG said:

    It's not just Rees-Mogg or old-fashioned bosses - practically all the major multinational companies are moving toward requiring more onsite time. Identifying the reasons why may be more enlightening than fretting about council staff. Maybe all of them know less about labour productivity than PB comments, but doubt it.

    Or alternatively, all of their managers are nervous about being seen to be no use.
    I had a conversation with someone 'on high' this week was very much of the 'on site' persuasion. Quite an extrovert and had the total conviction that people in an office all 'bounced ideas off each other', draw amazing plans on whiteboards, 'generated energy' etc.

    I was really curious as to whether that was their *actual* experience, or whether it was just a perception as an extrovert that an hour spent with people babbling over each other's conversations amounted to the same thing.

    The last meeting I was at where people used a whiteboard - I let them dribble away for over an hour drawing flowcharts until they were sated - then pointed out that there was no way to 'escape' the loop from the first part of the flowchart, so the remaining 90% was entirely redundant.

    Made myself very popular. Again.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,133
    edited July 2023
    Jon Cruddas joining the growing chorus of anger in the Labour Party at Neal Lawson's possible expulsion, and from both the right and left of the party. I think Starmer needs to urgently backpedal of this, on behalf of some of his overzealous staff, and possibly also even reshuffle a few people, too.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/01/rightwing-illiberal-labour-mp-jon-cruddas-condemns-keir-starmers-witch-hunt

  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Well this is annoying.

    Looks like you cannot embed Tweets into Wordpress sites.

    PB runs on Wordpress so no more Tweets in thread headers.

    Screenshots?
    Might be an option.

    Although somebody else says this is a temporary glitch.
    It would seem rather stupid to push tweets out of Wordpress sites, given how many business websites - including mine - rely on it. It would definitely weaken their reach.

    But - since when has Musk acted sensibly?
    Indeed.

    It's bloody annoying, I've got an afternoon thread that trolls the SNP shares my brilliant betting wisdom on Scottish affairs that could be buggered by Elon.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,218
    edited July 2023
    ydoethur said:

    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    The thing that strikes me is that the small number of people he kept employed at the company can't tell the difference between someone doom-scrolling their twitter feed and a bot scraping the website, so instead they're implementing a crude limit on activity for all accounts.

    And yet he's certain that it's bots scraping the website. Right.

    Either he's telling the truth, in which case they're incompetent, or he's lying and incompetent.
    There are three further options.

    He's telling what he believes to be the truth, but is wrong, because either he hasn't been told the truth or he doesn't understand it.

    So he could be mistaken and incompetent or stupid and incompetent.

    Or, of course, he could have been told a pack of lies but lied about what he's been told.

    So he could be lying, stupid, mistaken and incompetent.
    Readers will have to make their own judgement as to whether any given statement represents
    (a) what happened
    (b) what he believed happened
    (c) what he would have liked to have to have happened
    (d) what he wanted others to believe happened
    (e) what he wanted others to believe that he believed happened


    (The Editor's Note to the Hacker Diaries)

    These days, we are more advanced and also have to consider
    (f) what he wanted others to believe that he would have liked to have happened
    (g) what he wanted others to believe he wanted others to believe happened

    In Musk's case, we're probably at (e) or (f), to the extent that Musk believes in the existence of other people at all.
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    dixiedean said:

    Possible by-election coming up in Tamworth.

    Chris Pincher?
    What's he done now?
    Committee report due
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    dixiedean said:

    Possible by-election coming up in Tamworth.

    Chris Pincher?
    What's he done now?
    Report by the Parliamentary Commissioner on his behaviour is to be published in the next few days and is said to be so damning it will trigger his resignation or a recall.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,900

    Foss said:

    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    I think of reactivating my MySpace account.
    That was purged a decade ago.
    I've brought back MySpace, after a fashion with my new profile pic.
    That's a funny way to spell OnlyFans...
  • eekeek Posts: 28,370
    Today's Cold War Steve...


  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,580
    Off-topic:

    An 18 year old Dutch driver, Dilano van't Hoff, died today at a crash at the Spa racing circuit, in what appeared to be very wet conditions.

    Perhaps it's time to start considering whether, like the old Nürburgring, the track is too unsafe for racing.

    RIP.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,784

    Well this is annoying.

    Looks like you cannot embed Tweets into Wordpress sites.

    PB runs on Wordpress so no more Tweets in thread headers.

    That's what you get for trying to skim your millions off of Musk's impoverished bank balance by embedding and linking to his company.

    Commie.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,679
    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    Just watched it. Even without the law, you'd have to do some serious mental contortions to say that should be classed as catch - the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    ydoethur said:

    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    The thing that strikes me is that the small number of people he kept employed at the company can't tell the difference between someone doom-scrolling their twitter feed and a bot scraping the website, so instead they're implementing a crude limit on activity for all accounts.

    And yet he's certain that it's bots scraping the website. Right.

    Either he's telling the truth, in which case they're incompetent, or he's lying and incompetent.
    There are three further options.

    He's telling what he believes to be the truth, but is wrong, because either he hasn't been told the truth or he doesn't understand it.

    So he could be mistaken and incompetent or stupid and incompetent.

    Or, of course, he could have been told a pack of lies but lied about what he's been told.

    So he could be lying, stupid, mistaken and incompetent.
    There’s also this.
    This is hilarious. It appears that Twitter is DDOSing itself. The Twitter home feed's been down for most of this morning. Even though nothing loads, the Twitter website
    never stops trying and trying. In the first video, notice the error message that I'm being
    rate limited. Then notice the jiggling scrollbar on the right. The second video shows why it's jiggling. Twitter is firing off about 10 requests a second to itself to try and fetch content that never arrives because Elon's latest genius innovation is to block people from being able to read
    Twitter without logging in. This likely created some hellish conditions that the engineers never envisioned and so we get this comedy of errors resulting in the most epic of self-owns…


    $44bn amateur hour.
  • FossFoss Posts: 1,019
    @BBCNews tweets about 80 times a day. I wonder how many people will be willing to expend that much of their allowance on them?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,892

    Jon Cruddas joining the growing chorus of anger in the Labour Party at Neal Lawson's possible expulsion, and from both the right and left of the party. I think Starmer needs to urgently backpedal of this, on behalf of some of his overzealous staff, and possibly also even reshuffle a few people, too.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/01/rightwing-illiberal-labour-mp-jon-cruddas-condemns-keir-starmers-witch-hunt

    Yes but might there be a problem if the same rules are needed to get rid of trots?
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    ohnotnow said:

    Well this is annoying.

    Looks like you cannot embed Tweets into Wordpress sites.

    PB runs on Wordpress so no more Tweets in thread headers.

    That's what you get for trying to skim your millions off of Musk's impoverished bank balance by embedding and linking to his company.

    Commie.
    Not commie. Capitalist.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,784
    Carnyx said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Well this is annoying.

    Looks like you cannot embed Tweets into Wordpress sites.

    PB runs on Wordpress so no more Tweets in thread headers.

    That's what you get for trying to skim your millions off of Musk's impoverished bank balance by embedding and linking to his company.

    Commie.
    Not commie. Capitalist.
    Capitalist, commie, free-speech absolutist, libertarian - much of a muchness.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 28,900

    Off-topic:

    An 18 year old Dutch driver, Dilano van't Hoff, died today at a crash at the Spa racing circuit, in what appeared to be very wet conditions.

    Perhaps it's time to start considering whether, like the old Nürburgring, the track is too unsafe for racing.

    RIP.

    It isn't the track that was the issue. Its that they let them race in that weather...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    WHY is the catching law so obscurantist?

    It should be, first, if the ball touches the grass or ground, within ten seconds of the catcher's fingers first making contact: Not Out

    Everything else is detail
  • GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 21,298
    Twitter is a menace, of course, but also provides (provided?) the only way to access communities of expertise.

    If it dies, a lot of value goes with it.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    ohnotnow said:

    Carnyx said:

    ohnotnow said:

    Well this is annoying.

    Looks like you cannot embed Tweets into Wordpress sites.

    PB runs on Wordpress so no more Tweets in thread headers.

    That's what you get for trying to skim your millions off of Musk's impoverished bank balance by embedding and linking to his company.

    Commie.
    Not commie. Capitalist.
    Capitalist, commie, free-speech absolutist, libertarian - much of a muchness.
    I'm a One Nation Thatcherite.

    Think Ken Clarke but with better shoes.
  • ohnotnowohnotnow Posts: 3,784
    ydoethur said:

    ohnotnow said:

    ydoethur said:

    EPG said:

    It's not just Rees-Mogg or old-fashioned bosses - practically all the major multinational companies are moving toward requiring more onsite time. Identifying the reasons why may be more enlightening than fretting about council staff. Maybe all of them know less about labour productivity than PB comments, but doubt it.

    Or alternatively, all of their managers are nervous about being seen to be no use.
    I had a conversation with someone 'on high' this week was very much of the 'on site' persuasion. Quite an extrovert and had the total conviction that people in an office all 'bounced ideas off each other', draw amazing plans on whiteboards, 'generated energy' etc.

    I was really curious as to whether that was their *actual* experience, or whether it was just a perception as an extrovert that an hour spent with people babbling over each other's conversations amounted to the same thing.

    The last meeting I was at where people used a whiteboard - I let them dribble away for over an hour drawing flowcharts until they were sated - then pointed out that there was no way to 'escape' the loop from the first part of the flowchart, so the remaining 90% was entirely redundant.

    Made myself very popular. Again.
    My experience as a senior teacher may not be typical, but I found when I did have free time - which wasn't much - I was ordered to attend a whole load of utterly pointless meetings that wasted my time but made it look as though the Deputy Heads above me were using theirs.

    It didn't seem to occur to them that I might have been able to use that time more productively preparing resources for the following year or training colleagues in the vast amount of new content the egregious Gove's botched reforms forced on us.

    I think a low point was when a number of us were forced to attend a meeting where we were asked to draw on an outline of a body what we thought a new staff dress code should be. Which lasted up until the moment I had to warn the head concerned - who made Pincher look like a choirboy - that his obsession with female staff wearing short skirts might actually get him a police caution.
    I was once sent on a 10 day training course by my manager on 'Team Leadership'. I did not have a team, or any prospect of one in the next decade or so.

    I asked him why he'd sent me on it and he said he thought it was funny.

    How. I. Laughed.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    …the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
    A perfect illustration of why the apostrophe is not yet redundant.
    Sounds painful, BTW.

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385
    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    …the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
    A perfect illustration of why the apostrophe is not yet redundant.
    Sounds painful, BTW.

    His wife's one of the best wicketkeepers in the world, I'm sure she'll catch his balls before they get near the ground.
  • eekeek Posts: 28,370

    Twitter is a menace, of course, but also provides (provided?) the only way to access communities of expertise.

    If it dies, a lot of value goes with it.

    Something will appear and take its place - the problem is none of the options are there yet mastodon is user unfriendly while Bluesky is slowly ramping up...
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    …the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
    A perfect illustration of why the apostrophe is not yet redundant.
    Sounds painful, BTW.

    His wife's one of the best wicketkeepers in the world, I'm sure she'll catch his balls before they get near the ground.
    But the Aussies have a long history of ball tampering.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 42,580

    Off-topic:

    An 18 year old Dutch driver, Dilano van't Hoff, died today at a crash at the Spa racing circuit, in what appeared to be very wet conditions.

    Perhaps it's time to start considering whether, like the old Nürburgring, the track is too unsafe for racing.

    RIP.

    It isn't the track that was the issue. Its that they let them race in that weather...
    It's both; F1's driven in similar, and Spa is the sort of track where the weather changes very rapidly, and it can be dry on one part of the circuit and wet at another. The problem, as can be seen in the tragic video, is lack of run-off. As it was with Hubert's crash.

    In today's crash, if there had been more run-off on the outside of the track it might have been avoided. Instead, cars have nowhere to go except back onto the racing line. (all IMO).
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070

    Twitter is a menace, of course, but also provides (provided?) the only way to access communities of expertise.

    If it dies, a lot of value goes with it.

    I agree; I really like(d) Twitter.

    Musk has musked it up,
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,835
    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    …the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
    A perfect illustration of why the apostrophe is not yet redundant.
    Sounds painful, BTW.

    Ironic really, given that vegetables tend to attract apostrophes in the normal high street.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    …the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
    A perfect illustration of why the apostrophe is not yet redundant.
    Sounds painful, BTW.

    His wife's one of the best wicketkeepers in the world, I'm sure she'll catch his balls before they get near the ground.
    But the Aussies have a long history of ball tampering.
    I'm sure Alyssa Healy wouldn't do such a thing.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 119,631
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    …the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
    A perfect illustration of why the apostrophe is not yet redundant.
    Sounds painful, BTW.

    His wife's one of the best wicketkeepers in the world, I'm sure she'll catch his balls before they get near the ground.
    But the Aussies have a long history of ball tampering.
    I'm sure Alyssa Healy wouldn't do such a thing.
    Steve Smith tampered with his balls using sandpaper, it made him cry.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    eek said:

    Twitter is a menace, of course, but also provides (provided?) the only way to access communities of expertise.

    If it dies, a lot of value goes with it.

    Something will appear and take its place - the problem is none of the options are there yet mastodon is user unfriendly while Bluesky is slowly ramping up...
    I don’t know if this is amusing or disturbing, but Meta is developing a Twitter competitor service.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    …the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
    A perfect illustration of why the apostrophe is not yet redundant.
    Sounds painful, BTW.

    His wife's one of the best wicketkeepers in the world, I'm sure she'll catch his balls before they get near the ground.
    But the Aussies have a long history of ball tampering.
    I'm sure Alyssa Healy wouldn't do such a thing.
    Steve Smith tampered with his balls using sandpaper, it made him cry.
    Well, serve him right. Why couldn't he use saliva like a normal person?
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Nigelb said:

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    …the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
    A perfect illustration of why the apostrophe is not yet redundant.
    Sounds painful, BTW.

    His wife's one of the best wicketkeepers in the world, I'm sure she'll catch his balls before they get near the ground.
    But the Aussies have a long history of ball tampering.
    I'm sure Alyssa Healy wouldn't do such a thing.
    Steve Smith tampered with his balls using sandpaper, it made him cry.
    But he now always puts in a polished performance.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 9,133
    edited July 2023

    Jon Cruddas joining the growing chorus of anger in the Labour Party at Neal Lawson's possible expulsion, and from both the right and left of the party. I think Starmer needs to urgently backpedal of this, on behalf of some of his overzealous staff, and possibly also even reshuffle a few people, too.

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/01/rightwing-illiberal-labour-mp-jon-cruddas-condemns-keir-starmers-witch-hunt

    Yes but might there be a problem if the same rules are needed to get rid of trots?
    I think some of his core staff are showing signs of having gone a bit power-drunk, to be honest.

    There have also always been question marks over a minority of people expelled in the purges of Corbynites, and this sort of behaviour will only bring those back, really. Starmer needs to carefully steer back towards the centre of the party, and not allow himself to be outridden by the some of the most illiberal, ultra-Blairite faction, who seem to have got a bit carried away in their determination to take out the slightest sign of the old regime. I've always said that the purgative, Johnson-like mentality, has always been a problem in Labour, amongst both Corbynites and Blairites, and now we're seeing some of the first signs of the Blairite excesses coming back.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,652
    ohnotnow said:

    ydoethur said:

    EPG said:

    It's not just Rees-Mogg or old-fashioned bosses - practically all the major multinational companies are moving toward requiring more onsite time. Identifying the reasons why may be more enlightening than fretting about council staff. Maybe all of them know less about labour productivity than PB comments, but doubt it.

    Or alternatively, all of their managers are nervous about being seen to be no use.
    I had a conversation with someone 'on high' this week was very much of the 'on site' persuasion. Quite an extrovert and had the total conviction that people in an office all 'bounced ideas off each other', draw amazing plans on whiteboards, 'generated energy' etc.

    I was really curious as to whether that was their *actual* experience, or whether it was just a perception as an extrovert that an hour spent with people babbling over each other's conversations amounted to the same thing.

    The last meeting I was at where people used a whiteboard - I let them dribble away for over an hour drawing flowcharts until they were sated - then pointed out that there was no way to 'escape' the loop from the first part of the flowchart, so the remaining 90% was entirely redundant.

    Made myself very popular. Again.
    Pity you didn't point it out in the first five minutes, instead of sneering at your dribbling colleagues.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,679
    Leon said:

    WHY is the catching law so obscurantist?

    It should be, first, if the ball touches the grass or ground, within ten seconds of the catcher's fingers first making contact: Not Out

    Everything else is detail

    Surely the very essence of a catch is that you prevent the ball from touching the ground. Starc didn't prevent it from touching the ground for the very simple reason that it did touch the ground. I can't see what there is to argue about.
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 14,324
    edited July 2023

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    Just watched it. Even without the law, you'd have to do some serious mental contortions to say that should be classed as catch - the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
    Just seen it myself. It's clearly not a catch, not even marginal.

    It's very closely analagous to the situation where a fielder makes a diving catch and the ball pops out of his hands when he hits the ground. The ball might be under control but the body isn't. It's the same here. He's used the ball, which is plainly grounded, to stabilise himself as he falls.

    Recant, Mr McGrath!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    Elena Kagan Has Had Enough

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/opinion/elena-kagan-dissent-supreme-court.html
    … I don’t want to discuss Roberts’s majority opinion as much as I do Justice Elena Kagan’s dissent. Kagan wrote something unusual. She didn’t just challenge the chief justice’s reasoning, she questioned whether the court’s decision was even constitutional.

    “From the first page to the last, today’s opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint,” Kagan wrote. “At the behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and the people they represent.”

    She continued: “That is a major problem not just for governance, but for democracy too. Congress is of course a democratic institution; it responds, even if imperfectly, to the preferences of American voters. And agency officials, though not themselves elected, serve a President with the broadest of all political constituencies. But this Court? It is, by design, as detached as possible from the body politic. That is why the Court is supposed to stick to its business — to decide only cases and controversies, and to stay away from making this Nation’s policy about subjects like student-loan relief.”

    The court, Kagan concluded, “exercises authority it does not have. It violates the Constitution.”

    It’s a remarkable statement. To say that the Supreme Court can violate the Constitution is to reject the idea that the court is somehow outside the constitutional system. It is to remind the public that the court is as bound by the Constitution as the other branches, which is to say that it is subject to the same “checks and balances” as the legislature and the executive.

    Kagan’s dissent, in other words, is a call for accountability. For Congress, especially, to exercise its authority to discipline the court when it oversteps its bounds...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    EPG said:

    ohnotnow said:

    ydoethur said:

    EPG said:

    It's not just Rees-Mogg or old-fashioned bosses - practically all the major multinational companies are moving toward requiring more onsite time. Identifying the reasons why may be more enlightening than fretting about council staff. Maybe all of them know less about labour productivity than PB comments, but doubt it.

    Or alternatively, all of their managers are nervous about being seen to be no use.
    I had a conversation with someone 'on high' this week was very much of the 'on site' persuasion. Quite an extrovert and had the total conviction that people in an office all 'bounced ideas off each other', draw amazing plans on whiteboards, 'generated energy' etc.

    I was really curious as to whether that was their *actual* experience, or whether it was just a perception as an extrovert that an hour spent with people babbling over each other's conversations amounted to the same thing.

    The last meeting I was at where people used a whiteboard - I let them dribble away for over an hour drawing flowcharts until they were sated - then pointed out that there was no way to 'escape' the loop from the first part of the flowchart, so the remaining 90% was entirely redundant.

    Made myself very popular. Again.
    Pity you didn't point it out in the first five minutes, instead of sneering at your dribbling colleagues.
    No, I think they’ll better remember the lesson that way.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,277
    edited July 2023

    Leon said:

    WHY is the catching law so obscurantist?

    It should be, first, if the ball touches the grass or ground, within ten seconds of the catcher's fingers first making contact: Not Out

    Everything else is detail

    Surely the very essence of a catch is that you prevent the ball from touching the ground. Starc didn't prevent it from touching the ground for the very simple reason that it did touch the ground. I can't see what there is to argue about.
    Absolutely. It's absurd. It's like claiming you can score a goal without the ball actually crossing the goal line

    It's a fecking nonsense. Change the law: simplify it
  • TazTaz Posts: 14,385

    Foss said:

    If they keep those limits in the longer term it’s going to have a massive effect on both general campaigning and the sudden spread of outrage-of-the-minute topics.

    I think of reactivating my MySpace account.
    Bring back friendsreunited !!
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    Foss said:

    @BBCNews tweets about 80 times a day. I wonder how many people will be willing to expend that much of their allowance on them?

    To follow Matt (cartoonist) on Twitter uses one a day. Does Twitter have other uses?
  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,793
    My mother was always, in retrospect, very strict about this. If the ball touched the floor, not out.
    She had no time at all for cricketers hurling the ball in celebration and if the ball then hit the ground as a result, not out.
    Considering I was an only child, and the standard of cricket played was never more serious than beach cricket, her attitude to this was, in retrospect, uncharacteristically hard line.
    Anyway, she definitely wouldn't have given Duckett out.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496

    kle4 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Sounds like it should have been out to me. Players throw the ball up in the air all the time before they've finished moving, and the ball usually hits the ground rather than being caught by someone else.

    The law does not say you stop moving, it says 'has complete control' over your movement. If you catch, land on your feet whilst moving, and throw the ball in the air immediately then you did have control, however immediately you threw the ball.

    This seems a clear case of people just not knowing what the law says, and getting angry it does not say what they think it says. It doesn't seem that controversial to me, as for example we see all the time people catching a ball clearly, hitting the ground, and the ball popping out without it counting as a catch - because they did not have control.

    Glemm McGrath can moan all he likes, but you can't just rub the ball on the ground after you catch - the moment is not dead.

    Just watched it. Even without the law, you'd have to do some serious mental contortions to say that should be classed as catch - the balls being scraped along the ground for an eternity.
    Just seen it myself. It's clearly not a catch, not even marginal.

    It's very closely analagous to the situation where a fielder makes a diving catch and the ball pops out of his hands when he hits the ground. The ball might be under control but the body isn't. It's the same here. He's used the ball, which is plainly grounded, to stabilise himself as he falls.

    Recant, Mr McGrath!
    The catcher generally knows perfectly well if he has made a good catch. Just as the batsman knows if he has snicked. Time for some sportsmanship.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,385
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    WHY is the catching law so obscurantist?

    It should be, first, if the ball touches the grass or ground, within ten seconds of the catcher's fingers first making contact: Not Out

    Everything else is detail

    Surely the very essence of a catch is that you prevent the ball from touching the ground. Starc didn't prevent it from touching the ground for the very simple reason that it did touch the ground. I can't see what there is to argue about.
    Absolutely. It's absurd. It's like claiming you can score a goal without the ball actually crossing the goal line

    It's a fecking nonsense. Change the law: simplify it
    Didn't the 1966 World Cup Final feature a goal that later VAR technology suggested was a false goal?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,401
    I've never used Twitter.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,070
    Latest suggestion is the Musk, following Mel Brook’s idea, has sold 500% of Twitter, and is now intentionally trying to bankrupt it before he has to deliver on the deal.
This discussion has been closed.