If you key Savanta's numbers into Electoral Calculus you get 118 Tory MPs left after the GE.
Now of course EC is a very blunt instrument and there are good reasons to think they will do vastly better on the day. There are however some reasons why they might actually do worse - tactical voting being one of the more obvious. I'll be very interested to see what kind totals the Spread firms put up when they get around to chalking up their boards. I suspect they will be operating huge overrounds.
Btw, EC puts the LDs just ahead of the SNP at 30 seats versus 28. That's an important and interesting little contest in itself.
Why is Caroline Dineage MP trending in the US overnight?
I’m not sure what to think of this one, apparently genuine letter written to Rumble’s CEO in the US, from the head of the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee, coming very close to suggesting that Rumble should be demonetising Russell Brand - not for anything he’s posted on their site, but just because he’s a bad person.
The Rumble CEO published the letter, and a quite forthright reply about freedom of speech.
It's not just the alt-right. Freedom of speech matters to Americans, whereas here it is just a slogan wheeled out from time to time when convenient in the land of draconian libel laws, super-injunctions and now this. First Amendment and all that.
Oh indeed, freedom of speech is quite literally written in their Constitution, and is taken much more seriously over there by everyone.
There’s a running theme on this subject through a lot of American discussion, mainly but not exclusively on the right and among libertarians, that social media platforms are trying to censor certain viewpoints ahead of the election next year.
Youtube especially is in the firing line, with their seemingly arbitrary demonetisation, shadow banning, and banning of accounts with little recourse. It was said to be one of the reasons behind Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and documents released by that company showed conversations with governments - including the US government - around certain specific accounts, as Rumble have released today.
Rumble was deliberately set up to be resistant to censorship, hosting their own servers and payment processing, and designed as web-first rather than app-first. Freedom of speech is their philosophy.
Obviously, it goes without saying that the likes of Russell Brand and Andrew Tate are horrible human beings, but that doesn’t mean they can’t earn a living while they still have their liberty.
I'm going to repeat a comment that got bugger all attention a few threads ago, but which is quite important:
It's in YouTube's financial interest to demonetize videos. They have a 6 adverts per hour of viewing policy. If you watch a demonetized video as part of your viewing habits, YouTube will still aim to show you 6 videos per hour. It's only that they won't be sharing the revenue with Russell Brand or with a history show maker that has slightly gory pictures or (as happened to me) where the conclude that you borrowed some music from an artist. (In the last case, YouTube strips me of the 0.1 cent I'd get for a view for my share of advertising so they can pay REM 0.01c for the streamed music.)
There is a simple solution to this problem; YouTube should be required to allow advertisers to publish next to "demonetized" videos. (And I would categorize demonetization as being due to one of a dozen easy to understand criteria.)
As there will be less competition for these placements, the revenue earned from them will be smaller than if you're next to a Mark Rober video. But it would mean that Google's power would be meaningfully reduced. Indeed, the power would move almost entirely to advertisers, and it would be their choice, not that platform's.
Given YouTube's near monopoly provision of video streaming, there is no reason why this could not be enforced by competition authorities in the US, UK and EU.
AI is now generating pretty pictures - that also function as QR codes. And they really work
Is this the first example of “art” that humans simply couldn’t do, no matter how talented?
A human could do this. It would be laborious, to be sure, but the principle is easy enough. It's still quite a leap of imagination to think of doing it, though, so kudos to the person who dreamt it up.
Fair enough. Try this
It still has that quality of “teenage album cover design” but now it’s “Christ what an amazing teenage album cover design”. For me this is even more impressive than the QR code. AI art is leaping ahead - again
Yes, there have been complaints it is putting self-employed artists out of business, which is sad. You'd have hoped AI would replace the sort of mass-produced wall art sold in Wilko and the like.
I would now be legit terrified as a professional artist
AI is showing creativity and flair, and anyone can use it, and it produces images in seconds, 24/7, virtually for free - in any style, theme, genre - and now it produces stuff no one has ever conceived before
Art as we know it is over
My wife is an artist. AI doesn’t compete with her because it’s simply another medium, like paint vs sculpture vs printing. People buy the person, the buying experience, the gallery of studio visit etc. Same as Nespresso doesn’t compete with barista coffee bars.
The biggest competition remains IKEA and Farrow & Ball. Art is, except at the very top end of the market, a home deco choice. They agonise way more over paying £200 for an etching than they would paying £200 for a meal out because it’s a decorative choice.
Most people would be saying 200 for either is out of their range. When i (rarely) go out to eat usually because friends. If my share of the bill comes to £50 then I am wincing and knowing I have to trim back my food for the next two weeks
Yes, there have been complaints it is putting self-employed artists out of business, which is sad. You'd have hoped AI would replace the sort of mass-produced wall art sold in Wilko and the like.
I would now be legit terrified as a professional artist
AI is showing creativity and flair, and anyone can use it, and it produces images in seconds, 24/7, virtually for free - in any style, theme, genre - and now it produces stuff no one has ever conceived before
Art as we know it is over
My wife is an artist. AI doesn’t compete with her because it’s simply another medium, like paint vs sculpture vs printing. People buy the person, the buying experience, the gallery of studio visit etc. Same as Nespresso doesn’t compete with barista coffee bars.
The biggest competition remains IKEA and Farrow & Ball. Art is, except at the very top end of the market, a home deco choice. They agonise way more over paying £200 for an etching than they would paying £200 for a meal out because it’s a decorative choice.
Most people would be saying 200 for either is out of their range. When i (rarely) go out to eat usually because friends. If my share of the bill comes to £50 then I am wincing and knowing I have to trim back my food for the next two weeks
This is the problem with pb.....most here can afford 200 on a meal. However about 70% of the country is feeling lucky if they have 500 a month to feed themselves and pay for their transport. This is why I get angry when people say no one will be bothered by 1% on basic income tax. The people saying it are usually people who wont fucking notice it
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Now of course EC is a very blunt instrument and there are good reasons to think they will do vastly better on the day. There are however some reasons why they might actually do worse - tactical voting being one of the more obvious. I'll be very interested to see what kind totals the Spread firms put up when they get around to chalking up their boards. I suspect they will be operating huge overrounds.
Btw, EC puts the LDs just ahead of the SNP at 30 seats versus 28. That's an important and interesting little contest in itself.
It's in YouTube's financial interest to demonetize videos. They have a 6 adverts per hour of viewing policy. If you watch a demonetized video as part of your viewing habits, YouTube will still aim to show you 6 videos per hour. It's only that they won't be sharing the revenue with Russell Brand or with a history show maker that has slightly gory pictures or (as happened to me) where the conclude that you borrowed some music from an artist. (In the last case, YouTube strips me of the 0.1 cent I'd get for a view for my share of advertising so they can pay REM 0.01c for the streamed music.)
There is a simple solution to this problem; YouTube should be required to allow advertisers to publish next to "demonetized" videos. (And I would categorize demonetization as being due to one of a dozen easy to understand criteria.)
As there will be less competition for these placements, the revenue earned from them will be smaller than if you're next to a Mark Rober video. But it would mean that Google's power would be meaningfully reduced. Indeed, the power would move almost entirely to advertisers, and it would be their choice, not that platform's.
Given YouTube's near monopoly provision of video streaming, there is no reason why this could not be enforced by competition authorities in the US, UK and EU.