One thing on which there seems to be a consensus is that rather than turning off supporters Trump is gaining from the various legal attacks on him. It is depriving everyone else on the GOP side of oxygen, it has allowed him to remain above the fray within the party rather than debating and it is making a lot of people angry that an "unelected official" thinks she can determine whether or not the choice of a major party is on the ballot or not.
This has, ironically, created a surge for Trump which is more significant than any slow decline in Biden's numbers but Biden is particularly struggling with black males and Hispanics, both essential parts of his 2016 coalition.
I feel like this kind of thing must make it hard to poll though. If you think your guy is being unfairly treated, and you're offered the chance to support him at no cost by naming him in an opinion poll, you'd probably take it. Does that same dynamic work in an actual caucus or primary? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, I have no idea.
And if your guy isn't able to legally be on the ballot in your state it means he gets zero delegates from there anyway
It is worth remembering that for procedural reasons the rulings in Maine and Colorado will not remove Trump from the primaries. He will still be able to enter those given the timeframes.
That will leave the Republicans with an extremely nasty problem if he wins in the primaries (as seems likely) and by some unexpected twist the Supreme Court toss him from the actual election.
We could see the first convention-imposed candidate since 1968 and the first serious contest since 1976.
Seems unlikely though.
Indeed.
The rulings don’t mean much and the people making them knew that because everyone knows this will have to be settled by the Supreme Court. Both rulings more or less say, “please, Supreme Court, rule on this as soon as possible”.
I think we won't find the SCOTUS in a hurry to hear cases which Trump would lose to his detriment WRT being a candidate; and in a hurry to hear those he will win to his advantage. A politicised court system is proving a great destroyer of values. Compared with this our UK system is fabulous. This is one reason why we urgently need a government which clearly respects the boundaries between parliament, government and courts, for it is currently under serious assault.
One thing on which there seems to be a consensus is that rather than turning off supporters Trump is gaining from the various legal attacks on him. It is depriving everyone else on the GOP side of oxygen, it has allowed him to remain above the fray within the party rather than debating and it is making a lot of people angry that an "unelected official" thinks she can determine whether or not the choice of a major party is on the ballot or not.
This has, ironically, created a surge for Trump which is more significant than any slow decline in Biden's numbers but Biden is particularly struggling with black males and Hispanics, both essential parts of his 2016 coalition.
I feel like this kind of thing must make it hard to poll though. If you think your guy is being unfairly treated, and you're offered the chance to support him at no cost by naming him in an opinion poll, you'd probably take it. Does that same dynamic work in an actual caucus or primary? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, I have no idea.
And if your guy isn't able to legally be on the ballot in your state it means he gets zero delegates from there anyway
It is worth remembering that for procedural reasons the rulings in Maine and Colorado will not remove Trump from the primaries. He will still be able to enter those given the timeframes.
That will leave the Republicans with an extremely nasty problem if he wins in the primaries (as seems likely) and by some unexpected twist the Supreme Court toss him from the actual election.
We could see the first convention-imposed candidate since 1968 and the first serious contest since 1976.
Seems unlikely though.
Indeed.
The rulings don’t mean much and the people making them knew that because everyone knows this will have to be settled by the Supreme Court. Both rulings more or less say, “please, Supreme Court, rule on this as soon as possible”.
I think we won't find the SCOTUS in a hurry to hear cases which Trump would lose to his detriment WRT being a candidate; and in a hurry to hear those he will win to his advantage. A politicised court system is proving a great destroyer of values. Compared with this our UK system is fabulous. This is one reason why we urgently need a government which clearly respects the boundaries between parliament, government and courts, for it is currently under serious assault.
One thing that is good - the U.K. Supreme Court has steadfastly refused to legislate.
This isn’t the Supreme Court “abdicating its responsibilities” as the fox beaters put it. It is protecting the system from abuse. Abuse that would ultimately wreck the Supreme Court, among other things.
One thing on which there seems to be a consensus is that rather than turning off supporters Trump is gaining from the various legal attacks on him. It is depriving everyone else on the GOP side of oxygen, it has allowed him to remain above the fray within the party rather than debating and it is making a lot of people angry that an "unelected official" thinks she can determine whether or not the choice of a major party is on the ballot or not.
This has, ironically, created a surge for Trump which is more significant than any slow decline in Biden's numbers but Biden is particularly struggling with black males and Hispanics, both essential parts of his 2016 coalition.
I feel like this kind of thing must make it hard to poll though. If you think your guy is being unfairly treated, and you're offered the chance to support him at no cost by naming him in an opinion poll, you'd probably take it. Does that same dynamic work in an actual caucus or primary? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, I have no idea.
And if your guy isn't able to legally be on the ballot in your state it means he gets zero delegates from there anyway
It is worth remembering that for procedural reasons the rulings in Maine and Colorado will not remove Trump from the primaries. He will still be able to enter those given the timeframes.
That will leave the Republicans with an extremely nasty problem if he wins in the primaries (as seems likely) and by some unexpected twist the Supreme Court toss him from the actual election.
We could see the first convention-imposed candidate since 1968 and the first serious contest since 1976.
Seems unlikely though.
Indeed.
The rulings don’t mean much and the people making them knew that because everyone knows this will have to be settled by the Supreme Court. Both rulings more or less say, “please, Supreme Court, rule on this as soon as possible”.
I think we won't find the SCOTUS in a hurry to hear cases which Trump would lose to his detriment WRT being a candidate; and in a hurry to hear those he will win to his advantage. A politicised court system is proving a great destroyer of values. Compared with this our UK system is fabulous. This is one reason why we urgently need a government which clearly respects the boundaries between parliament, government and courts, for it is currently under serious assault.
Oh, sure. The Supreme Court will act in a partisan manner, as it usually has throughout its existence. It is a mess, and an unconstitutional one ironically.
(Four justices should recuse themselves, but won’t. Two of them should be impeached!)
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
Not quite. Universal free education to age 18 is a developed world universal and has been around for decades. Child benefit for most merely gives back a small amount of the tax you pay, and if you pay a lot of tax you don't get it at all. Social services engagement with families and children involves a tiny percent of the total. That massive engagement should occur with complex needs and special cases is called being a civilized country.
Outside the urban world of movers, shakers, wealthy and nannies,parents and grandparents/other family do nearly all the heavy lifting of child care. In my small town existence it is quite moving to be around (doing my bit!) at the infant/junior school
I wasn’t particularly getting at Labour, because what they’re offering is only an extension of what is already on offer, but it just struck me how a reasonably uncontroversial and possibly popular policy nowadays can be pretty much lifted from a communist essay from a hundred years ago.
Well, the communist essay is deliberately structuring its proposals as "this is a modest and natural extension of how society has been changing even in capitalist countries, not a radical departure imposed on people from the top down", so the convergence with modern capitalist political proposals is not so very strange. But the essay's central idea that "The family is ceasing to be necessary either to its members or to the nation as a whole", that "the family is doomed to disappear" and that "the worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember that there are only our children, the children of Russia’s communist workers" -- these all are failed predictions in either communist or capitalist societies, and if Labour increases the state provision of nursery and childcare it doesn't seem very likely that this is going to be a step towards the dissolution of the nuclear family.
Yes, although I think “the family is ceasing to be necessary…” is not as much of a failed prediction as the others.
On the contrary I don't think it was ever more important. For the majority, for whom it works rather well, there is a tendency not to trumpet it too loudly in order not to upset those on the margins.
BTW a remarkable number of families have someone whom they have adopted to some degree - varying from literally taking them into the unit to having a temporary or permanent interest in their welfare - who has somehow fallen through the family net.
I took the communists to be using ‘family’ as ‘Father, Mother and children’/nuclear family - that’s no longer as important in the days of single parents, but you’re right, what they are saying is ‘relatives are no more important than the state care’ which is obviously not the case
Can somebody explain why Labour was able to meet the 4 hour A&E target in almost every case, along with the 48 hour GP target? And they did so for years and years including during 2008, 2009, 2010.
Why when the Tories came in, did all of these targets start to be missed?
I can't, but I'd make a firm guess that the reasons will be complex and multifactorial.
It was obvious Starmer was going to about turn when he was elected, as I said so here at the time!
You weren’t here at the time - you only joined two weeks ago.
That brilliant user CorrectHorseBattery said at the time, that Keir Starmer would about turn on all of the pledges after being elected.
Whatever happened to that great user? Along with Leon, they were one of the best users posting.
Certainly among the most prolific…
Not as prolific as you. But then you and CHB were always in a duel
Two types of prolific. I have been on PB, unbanned and no new identities for years. Other posters burn brightly with more frequent posts and rack that post count up! Sadly they often burn out, only for a new start to be born…
And some “Horses” are even dafter than Shiskin. 🙄
MoonRabbit, are you cos-playing Tory or Labour this week?
What you confuse as cos play is where an awful lot of people instinctively ❤️ the Conservative politics which dominated the last hundred years in the UK, fiscally so much stronger than Labour and with so much less internal division than Labour. Yet at same time these Conservative minded can now frequently post very cutting and damming arguments against the current government, not least because a “fuck business” and “fuck cutting out burden of hidden and admin cost trade deal with EU” is not fiscally the strongest approach - and they now appear to have even more idealogical internal warfare than Labour.
I’ve never voted for the party. I even voted for someone with a bin over their head at one point. Because Over the last 10 years, the entire span of my voting life, that party who knew exactly how to rule a country well for the last hundred years has come to utterly lose the plot, and need to be placed a billion miles from the corridors of power for the time being. Maybe it won’t ever comeback from next years electoral drubbing, because the soul of that old party is just rubbish at managing UKs inevitable decline - refusing to accept that it is inevitable and very painful decline, therefore making stupid decisions disconnected from the reality of what they have no choice but to do.
Trump won’t be convicted of anything . Finding a jury that would unanimously agree seems very unlikely . You’re always bound to have one cult member that will refuse to .
We need to accept that the USA is fast turning into a failed state where nearly half the population don’t seem to care that Trump is the most corrupt individual to ever hold the Presidency.
I’m really passed caring anymore . I used to but have accepted defeat. I doubt Trump will start any wars so that’s one crumb of comfort .
The UK and the EU must prepare for the worst and need to forget about the USA in terms of help for Ukraine and will need to accept that NATOs days might be numbered or that they’ll need to find a lot more resources.
Can somebody explain why Labour was able to meet the 4 hour A&E target in almost every case, along with the 48 hour GP target? And they did so for years and years including during 2008, 2009, 2010.
Why when the Tories came in, did all of these targets start to be missed?
ChatGBNews should be able to do a nice graph of increases in NHS spending since 2010.
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
Not quite. Universal free education to age 18 is a developed world universal and has been around for decades. Child benefit for most merely gives back a small amount of the tax you pay, and if you pay a lot of tax you don't get it at all. Social services engagement with families and children involves a tiny percent of the total. That massive engagement should occur with complex needs and special cases is called being a civilized country.
Outside the urban world of movers, shakers, wealthy and nannies,parents and grandparents/other family do nearly all the heavy lifting of child care. In my small town existence it is quite moving to be around (doing my bit!) at the infant/junior school
I wasn’t particularly getting at Labour, because what they’re offering is only an extension of what is already on offer, but it just struck me how a reasonably uncontroversial and possibly popular policy nowadays can be pretty much lifted from a communist essay from a hundred years ago.
Well, the communist essay is deliberately structuring its proposals as "this is a modest and natural extension of how society has been changing even in capitalist countries, not a radical departure imposed on people from the top down", so the convergence with modern capitalist political proposals is not so very strange. But the essay's central idea that "The family is ceasing to be necessary either to its members or to the nation as a whole", that "the family is doomed to disappear" and that "the worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember that there are only our children, the children of Russia’s communist workers" -- these all are failed predictions in either communist or capitalist societies, and if Labour increases the state provision of nursery and childcare it doesn't seem very likely that this is going to be a step towards the dissolution of the nuclear family.
Yes, although I think “the family is ceasing to be necessary…” is not as much of a failed prediction as the others.
On the subject of failed predictions, is there an easy way to find mine from a year ago for 2023? Probably the New Year's Day thread, but how to find it?
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
In my limited experience, female firemen liked to be called 'firemen' and not 'fireperson'. They tended to be much more bothered about the lack of facilities for women at many railways.
The following is a good talk given by Joanne Crompton on these sorts of issues, which ruffled some feathers (it should not have done): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z-fbYrNVD0
Can somebody explain why Labour was able to meet the 4 hour A&E target in almost every case, along with the 48 hour GP target? And they did so for years and years including during 2008, 2009, 2010.
Why when the Tories came in, did all of these targets start to be missed?
ChatGBNews should be able to do a nice graph of increases in NHS spending since 2010.
It's quite incredible to have the Tories spending so much money and yet still unable to meet any of the targets. As the so-called arbiters of good use of public money, this seems a large blindspot for them.
It was obvious Starmer was going to about turn when he was elected, as I said so here at the time!
You weren’t here at the time - you only joined two weeks ago.
That brilliant user CorrectHorseBattery said at the time, that Keir Starmer would about turn on all of the pledges after being elected.
Whatever happened to that great user? Along with Leon, they were one of the best users posting.
Certainly among the most prolific…
Not as prolific as you. But then you and CHB were always in a duel
Two types of prolific. I have been on PB, unbanned and no new identities for years. Other posters burn brightly with more frequent posts and rack that post count up! Sadly they often burn out, only for a new start to be born…
And some “Horses” are even dafter than Shiskin. 🙄
MoonRabbit, are you cos-playing Tory or Labour this week?
I’m playing critical parent to your misbehaving 😇
I am indeed wanking myself silly over CHB, would you not? Neigh!
You need to reign yourself in.
Tap out and watch some sport.
Here’s some tips 2.10 Taunton - Queens Gamble 2.25 Newbury - Certainly Red 3.00 Newbury - Captain Teague 3.35 Newbury - Passing Well
Go out and stand under a tree listening to the angry birds and experience the sunset and tge lights coming on.
This way you can still post later when you see something that definitely needs answering, or got some very thoughtful spark to share, and not banned. 🤨
Trump won’t be convicted of anything . Finding a jury that would unanimously agree seems very unlikely . You’re always bound to have one cult member that will refuse to .
We need to accept that the USA is fast turning into a failed state where nearly half the population don’t seem to care that Trump is the most corrupt individual to ever hold the Presidency.
I’m really passed caring anymore . I used to but have accepted defeat. I doubt Trump will start any wars so that’s one crumb of comfort .
The UK and the EU must prepare for the worst and need to forget about the USA in terms of help for Ukraine and will need to accept that NATOs days might be numbered or that they’ll need to find a lot more resources.
One of his cases is in DC which is overwhelmingly Democrat.
Though yes I agree the European NATO states and Canada need to be prepared to fund containing Putin themselves without the support of a US led by Trump again if that occurs
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
In my limited experience, female firemen liked to be called 'firemen' and not 'fireperson'. They tended to be much more bothered about the lack of facilities for women at many railways.
The following is a good talk given by Joanne Crompton on these sorts of issues, which ruffled some feathers (it should not have done): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z-fbYrNVD0
It was obvious Starmer was going to about turn when he was elected, as I said so here at the time!
You weren’t here at the time - you only joined two weeks ago.
That brilliant user CorrectHorseBattery said at the time, that Keir Starmer would about turn on all of the pledges after being elected.
Whatever happened to that great user? Along with Leon, they were one of the best users posting.
Certainly among the most prolific…
Not as prolific as you. But then you and CHB were always in a duel
Two types of prolific. I have been on PB, unbanned and no new identities for years. Other posters burn brightly with more frequent posts and rack that post count up! Sadly they often burn out, only for a new start to be born…
And some “Horses” are even dafter than Shiskin. 🙄
MoonRabbit, are you cos-playing Tory or Labour this week?
I’m playing critical parent to your misbehaving 😇
I am indeed wanking myself silly over CHB, would you not? Neigh!
You need to reign yourself in.
Tap out and watch some sport.
Here’s some tips 2.10 Taunton - Queens Gamble 2.25 Newbury - Certainly Red 3.00 Newbury - Captain Teague 3.35 Newbury - Passing Well
Go out and stand under a tree listening to the angry birds and experience the sunset and tge lights coming on.
This way you can still post later when you see something that definitely needs answering, or got some very thoughtful spark to share, and not banned. 🤨
I probably shouldn't follow your advice, as I still think you've been banned more times than CHB. He did run you a close second.
I'd like to know what you think the outcome of the GE2024 election will be?
Trump won’t be convicted of anything . Finding a jury that would unanimously agree seems very unlikely . You’re always bound to have one cult member that will refuse to .
Trump has been found guilty by a jury in the past. The (first) Jean Carroll case was in front of a jury. A 2022 jury found the Trump Corporation guilty of fraud.
Some cases are not in front of juries (as with the New York fraud case), so you can be convicted without a jury.
Yet De Santos is still polling second to Trump in Iowa and the closest to Trump still in the majority of other states polled
As I said at the start of the thread, if the polling is correct then DeSantis will go from a creditable second in Iowa straight onto a humiliating third or fourth in New Hampshire, in which case, his best tactic might be to withdraw immediately after Iowa and endorse Trump, in the hope Trump will destroy Haley and that he will inherit MAGA support for 2028.
Because if DeSantis really is running out of support and, more crucially, money, then he will have to pull out and he will not want to do that as a 4th-place loser.
Why? Given he would still have got second in Iowa is still polling closer to Trump in most other states than Haley is and given Trump could still be blocked from the ballot in many states and even be sentenced to jail by the middle of next year
If DeSantis is running out of money then he will need to pull out and the only question is when is best for him to do so. Look at the timetable. DeSantis is second in Iowa but then it is only a week before New Hampshire where he is circling the drain. Then a fortnight to Nevada and a 4-way tie.
So if DeSantis is to pull out, he has just a few days after Iowa in which to frame himself as a winner for 2028 (ETA or to find a billionaire with an open cheque book).
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
In my limited experience, female firemen liked to be called 'firemen' and not 'fireperson'. They tended to be much more bothered about the lack of facilities for women at many railways.
The following is a good talk given by Joanne Crompton on these sorts of issues, which ruffled some feathers (it should not have done): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z-fbYrNVD0
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
Not quite. Universal free education to age 18 is a developed world universal and has been around for decades. Child benefit for most merely gives back a small amount of the tax you pay, and if you pay a lot of tax you don't get it at all. Social services engagement with families and children involves a tiny percent of the total. That massive engagement should occur with complex needs and special cases is called being a civilized country.
Outside the urban world of movers, shakers, wealthy and nannies,parents and grandparents/other family do nearly all the heavy lifting of child care. In my small town existence it is quite moving to be around (doing my bit!) at the infant/junior school
I wasn’t particularly getting at Labour, because what they’re offering is only an extension of what is already on offer, but it just struck me how a reasonably uncontroversial and possibly popular policy nowadays can be pretty much lifted from a communist essay from a hundred years ago.
Well, the communist essay is deliberately structuring its proposals as "this is a modest and natural extension of how society has been changing even in capitalist countries, not a radical departure imposed on people from the top down", so the convergence with modern capitalist political proposals is not so very strange. But the essay's central idea that "The family is ceasing to be necessary either to its members or to the nation as a whole", that "the family is doomed to disappear" and that "the worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember that there are only our children, the children of Russia’s communist workers" -- these all are failed predictions in either communist or capitalist societies, and if Labour increases the state provision of nursery and childcare it doesn't seem very likely that this is going to be a step towards the dissolution of the nuclear family.
Yes, although I think “the family is ceasing to be necessary…” is not as much of a failed prediction as the others.
Doesn’t it take a village to raise a child? In other words, reactions with relatives and neighbours are important.
Heh. The joys of being a parent.
My door, window, kitchen and bathroom man just turned up with an invoice this morning, for replacement of the door gear in a uPVC door he installed in a house renovation back in 2017 or so. The door gear is the gubbins (minus the lock) inside the door that engages the locking multipoints.
He turned up looking a bit hipster-like with a growth of beard and a certain amount of hair on top.
It turns out that his daughter is doing a hairdressing module on her course at Sheffield University, and is required to demonstrate that at the end she has the skills to cut hair and shave a beard. Inevitably, dad is the chosen victim 😁.
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
Not quite. Universal free education to age 18 is a developed world universal and has been around for decades. Child benefit for most merely gives back a small amount of the tax you pay, and if you pay a lot of tax you don't get it at all. Social services engagement with families and children involves a tiny percent of the total. That massive engagement should occur with complex needs and special cases is called being a civilized country.
Outside the urban world of movers, shakers, wealthy and nannies,parents and grandparents/other family do nearly all the heavy lifting of child care. In my small town existence it is quite moving to be around (doing my bit!) at the infant/junior school
I wasn’t particularly getting at Labour, because what they’re offering is only an extension of what is already on offer, but it just struck me how a reasonably uncontroversial and possibly popular policy nowadays can be pretty much lifted from a communist essay from a hundred years ago.
Is this not merely that there is a shared belief in prosperous societies that we don't let hard cases die in the gutter, and especially children. This intuition, much of it of religious inspiration in the ancient world, is quite old. Wealthy societies should be able to do it better. Marxists, democrats, liberals, Burkeans and libertarians share all sorts of values. Which is why the real Overton window in domestic matters is quite small.
The USA is the outlier. There’s a widespread view that hard cases should die in the gutter.
That goes a long way to explaining (a) US economic prowess (b) the fact that so many don’t feel they benefit from it.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
In my limited experience, female firemen liked to be called 'firemen' and not 'fireperson'. They tended to be much more bothered about the lack of facilities for women at many railways.
The following is a good talk given by Joanne Crompton on these sorts of issues, which ruffled some feathers (it should not have done): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z-fbYrNVD0
Can somebody explain why Labour was able to meet the 4 hour A&E target in almost every case, along with the 48 hour GP target? And they did so for years and years including during 2008, 2009, 2010.
Why when the Tories came in, did all of these targets start to be missed?
Because labour are brilliant and the Tories are evil and hate people ?
Trump won’t be convicted of anything . Finding a jury that would unanimously agree seems very unlikely . You’re always bound to have one cult member that will refuse to .
Trump has been found guilty by a jury in the past. The (first) Jean Carroll case was in front of a jury. A 2022 jury found the Trump Corporation guilty of fraud.
Some cases are not in front of juries (as with the New York fraud case), so you can be convicted without a jury.
For background and AIUI, the New York Fraud Case is not in front of a Jury because Trump's lawyer chose not to ask for one. The option was there if Alina Habba had ticked the box on the form; she did not do so.
I don't think that application would have required the Judge to comply, however.
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
Not quite. Universal free education to age 18 is a developed world universal and has been around for decades. Child benefit for most merely gives back a small amount of the tax you pay, and if you pay a lot of tax you don't get it at all. Social services engagement with families and children involves a tiny percent of the total. That massive engagement should occur with complex needs and special cases is called being a civilized country.
Outside the urban world of movers, shakers, wealthy and nannies,parents and grandparents/other family do nearly all the heavy lifting of child care. In my small town existence it is quite moving to be around (doing my bit!) at the infant/junior school
I wasn’t particularly getting at Labour, because what they’re offering is only an extension of what is already on offer, but it just struck me how a reasonably uncontroversial and possibly popular policy nowadays can be pretty much lifted from a communist essay from a hundred years ago.
Well, the communist essay is deliberately structuring its proposals as "this is a modest and natural extension of how society has been changing even in capitalist countries, not a radical departure imposed on people from the top down", so the convergence with modern capitalist political proposals is not so very strange. But the essay's central idea that "The family is ceasing to be necessary either to its members or to the nation as a whole", that "the family is doomed to disappear" and that "the worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember that there are only our children, the children of Russia’s communist workers" -- these all are failed predictions in either communist or capitalist societies, and if Labour increases the state provision of nursery and childcare it doesn't seem very likely that this is going to be a step towards the dissolution of the nuclear family.
Yes, although I think “the family is ceasing to be necessary…” is not as much of a failed prediction as the others.
On the subject of failed predictions, is there an easy way to find mine from a year ago for 2023? Probably the New Year's Day thread, but how to find it?
I don't know about yours but I kept a copy of mine (saddo that I am).
PB predictions 2023
1. Ukraine stalemate to continue throughout the year with little change. ✔︎ 2. Inflation to remain above 5% by year end. ✘ 3. Trump still to be the leading GOP POTUS candidate by year end. ✔︎ 4. May local elections to be a record loss for the Tories. ✘ 5. …despite which, Sunak to still be PM at the end of the year. ✔︎ 6. Labour polling lead to continue in to 10% - 20% range through the year. ✔︎ 7. FTSE100 at 6,500 by year end. ✘ 8. Australia to win the Ashes this summer. ✘ 9. France to win the RU world cup. ✘ 10. England to win the Women’s Football World Cup. ✘
4/10 - Leonesque levels of prediction but a marked improvement on last year.
Can somebody explain why Labour was able to meet the 4 hour A&E target in almost every case, along with the 48 hour GP target? And they did so for years and years including during 2008, 2009, 2010.
Why when the Tories came in, did all of these targets start to be missed?
Because labour are brilliant and the Tories are evil and hate people ?
The 4 hour target was a bit of flim flam, as such targets are.
The answer is in the Mitrokhin Archive, among other places. And no, it’s not about spies or working for the KGB.
It was obvious Starmer was going to about turn when he was elected, as I said so here at the time!
You weren’t here at the time - you only joined two weeks ago.
That brilliant user CorrectHorseBattery said at the time, that Keir Starmer would about turn on all of the pledges after being elected.
Whatever happened to that great user? Along with Leon, they were one of the best users posting.
Certainly among the most prolific…
Not as prolific as you. But then you and CHB were always in a duel
Two types of prolific. I have been on PB, unbanned and no new identities for years. Other posters burn brightly with more frequent posts and rack that post count up! Sadly they often burn out, only for a new start to be born…
And some “Horses” are even dafter than Shiskin. 🙄
MoonRabbit, are you cos-playing Tory or Labour this week?
I’m playing critical parent to your misbehaving 😇
I am indeed wanking myself silly over CHB, would you not? Neigh!
You need to reign yourself in.
Tap out and watch some sport.
Here’s some tips 2.10 Taunton - Queens Gamble 2.25 Newbury - Certainly Red 3.00 Newbury - Captain Teague 3.35 Newbury - Passing Well
Go out and stand under a tree listening to the angry birds and experience the sunset and tge lights coming on.
This way you can still post later when you see something that definitely needs answering, or got some very thoughtful spark to share, and not banned. 🤨
I probably shouldn't follow your advice, as I still think you've been banned more times than CHB. He did run you a close second.
I'd like to know what you think the outcome of the GE2024 election will be?
But I ain’t ever ever getting banned again, I so value my PB quote button and being a PBer.
I think the next election the history books call a Brexit election. Because of that utterly unelectable Britain hating, anti semite ideologically immature Corbyn being the alternative government, the Tory party hadn’t received a proper kicking from Remainia for Brexit yet. So even if they weren’t so out of touch and factionally riven, the Tories were always in for a kicking once labour were remotely safe again. The Tories will be lucky to poll 30% at the election, I reckon something in the 20s. Because the interesting bit is what Reform will actually poll.
At start of this parliament you could imagine the following election being a “let’s protect our Brexit” election, couldn’t you? It’s become so unpopular so quick, it will be laugh out loud if “don’t vote Labour, protect Brexit” appears on a newspaper front page or a Tory election leaflet. Yet just 4 years ago Torys gobbled up all Farages support to get brexit done. Yes it is done, but no, it’s not remotely delivering anything promised. So it’s easy now to imagine the Tories polling in the 20’s and reform 5%, result is 150 Tory MPs.
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
Not quite. Universal free education to age 18 is a developed world universal and has been around for decades. Child benefit for most merely gives back a small amount of the tax you pay, and if you pay a lot of tax you don't get it at all. Social services engagement with families and children involves a tiny percent of the total. That massive engagement should occur with complex needs and special cases is called being a civilized country.
Outside the urban world of movers, shakers, wealthy and nannies,parents and grandparents/other family do nearly all the heavy lifting of child care. In my small town existence it is quite moving to be around (doing my bit!) at the infant/junior school
I wasn’t particularly getting at Labour, because what they’re offering is only an extension of what is already on offer, but it just struck me how a reasonably uncontroversial and possibly popular policy nowadays can be pretty much lifted from a communist essay from a hundred years ago.
Is this not merely that there is a shared belief in prosperous societies that we don't let hard cases die in the gutter, and especially children. This intuition, much of it of religious inspiration in the ancient world, is quite old. Wealthy societies should be able to do it better. Marxists, democrats, liberals, Burkeans and libertarians share all sorts of values. Which is why the real Overton window in domestic matters is quite small.
The USA is the outlier. There’s a widespread view that hard cases should die in the gutter.
That goes a long way to explaining (a) US economic prowess (b) the fact that so many don’t feel they benefit from it.
If America wasn’t so Woke I could almost live there
Trump won’t be convicted of anything . Finding a jury that would unanimously agree seems very unlikely . You’re always bound to have one cult member that will refuse to .
Trump has been found guilty by a jury in the past. The (first) Jean Carroll case was in front of a jury. A 2022 jury found the Trump Corporation guilty of fraud.
Some cases are not in front of juries (as with the New York fraud case), so you can be convicted without a jury.
For background and AIUI, the New York Fraud Case is not in front of a Jury because Trump's lawyer chose not to ask for one. The option was there if Alina Habba had ticked the box on the form; she did not do so.
I don't think that application would have required the Judge to comply, however.
How does incompetence (failing to tick a box on a form) = defamation?
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
It’s not the case that we are less stringent - see this…
It appears in my reply I might have been too cynical having come across the issue and finding a web site that confirmed my suspicions having bought light bulbs with what appeared to be a nonsense rating.
Not sure why they wanted to change power usage to kw/1000h though.
kW/1000h is not a unit. It is meaningless. You could have kWh/1000h - is that what they actually mean?
Yep, see my reply to @OnlyLivingBoy . That was my mistake and not a mistake on the label. It was kwh/1000h.
Would be better if they used Joules in my opinion.
Isn’t Joules busy right now getting ready for his Annual Hootenanny?
Can somebody explain why Labour was able to meet the 4 hour A&E target in almost every case, along with the 48 hour GP target? And they did so for years and years including during 2008, 2009, 2010.
Why when the Tories came in, did all of these targets start to be missed?
Because labour are brilliant and the Tories are evil and hate people ?
The Tories have done good things, Labour have done terrible things. I have - believe it or not - voted for both parties.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
It’s not the case that we are less stringent - see this…
It appears in my reply I might have been too cynical having come across the issue and finding a web site that confirmed my suspicions having bought light bulbs with what appeared to be a nonsense rating.
Not sure why they wanted to change power usage to kw/1000h though.
kW/1000h is not a unit. It is meaningless. You could have kWh/1000h - is that what they actually mean?
Yep, see my reply to @OnlyLivingBoy . That was my mistake and not a mistake on the label. It was kwh/1000h.
Would be better if they used Joules in my opinion.
Isn’t Joules busy right now getting ready for his Annual Hootenanny?
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
Not quite. Universal free education to age 18 is a developed world universal and has been around for decades. Child benefit for most merely gives back a small amount of the tax you pay, and if you pay a lot of tax you don't get it at all. Social services engagement with families and children involves a tiny percent of the total. That massive engagement should occur with complex needs and special cases is called being a civilized country.
Outside the urban world of movers, shakers, wealthy and nannies,parents and grandparents/other family do nearly all the heavy lifting of child care. In my small town existence it is quite moving to be around (doing my bit!) at the infant/junior school
I wasn’t particularly getting at Labour, because what they’re offering is only an extension of what is already on offer, but it just struck me how a reasonably uncontroversial and possibly popular policy nowadays can be pretty much lifted from a communist essay from a hundred years ago.
Well, the communist essay is deliberately structuring its proposals as "this is a modest and natural extension of how society has been changing even in capitalist countries, not a radical departure imposed on people from the top down", so the convergence with modern capitalist political proposals is not so very strange. But the essay's central idea that "The family is ceasing to be necessary either to its members or to the nation as a whole", that "the family is doomed to disappear" and that "the worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember that there are only our children, the children of Russia’s communist workers" -- these all are failed predictions in either communist or capitalist societies, and if Labour increases the state provision of nursery and childcare it doesn't seem very likely that this is going to be a step towards the dissolution of the nuclear family.
Yes, although I think “the family is ceasing to be necessary…” is not as much of a failed prediction as the others.
On the subject of failed predictions, is there an easy way to find mine from a year ago for 2023? Probably the New Year's Day thread, but how to find it?
I don't know about yours but I kept a copy of mine (saddo that I am).
PB predictions 2023
1. Ukraine stalemate to continue throughout the year with little change. ✔︎ 2. Inflation to remain above 5% by year end. ✘ 3. Trump still to be the leading GOP POTUS candidate by year end. ✔︎ 4. May local elections to be a record loss for the Tories. ✘ 5. …despite which, Sunak to still be PM at the end of the year. ✔︎ 6. Labour polling lead to continue in to 10% - 20% range through the year. ✔︎ 7. FTSE100 at 6,500 by year end. ✘ 8. Australia to win the Ashes this summer. ✘ 9. France to win the RU world cup. ✘ 10. England to win the Women’s Football World Cup. ✘
4/10 - Leonesque levels of prediction but a marked improvement on last year.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
Coal Actualisation Specialist?
Not all eventualities. Sometimes Oil Transfer Monitor, as one would, for example, on the Ffestiniog (and possibly others).
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I hope American voters take this to heart and vote for the man who stay married to one woman and not for the serial adulterer.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
Coal Actualisation Specialist?
Not all eventualities. Sometimes Oil Transfer Monitor, as one would, for example, on the Ffestiniog (and possibly others).
That would be whole other specialism. Do you want to cause a strike?
During WWII, my grandfather, who was a riveter by trade, volunteered to train as a welder. He was getting older, and thought that something with less physical effort was the way to go. The shipyard hard a bunch of wildcat strikes over welding. Some were about demanding retention of riveting.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
Coal Actualisation Specialist?
Not all eventualities. Sometimes Oil Transfer Monitor, as one would, for example, on the Ffestiniog (and possibly others).
That would be whole other specialism. Do you want to cause a strike?
During WWII, my grandfather, who was a riveter by trade, volunteered to train as a welder. He was getting older, and thought that something with less physical effort was the way to go. The shipyard hard a bunch of wildcat strikes over welding. Some were about demanding retention of riveting.
The concept of a strike on a voluntary railway is an interesting one. But not logically impossible, however.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
Coal Actualisation Specialist?
Not all eventualities. Sometimes Oil Transfer Monitor, as one would, for example, on the Ffestiniog (and possibly others).
That would be whole other specialism. Do you want to cause a strike?
During WWII, my grandfather, who was a riveter by trade, volunteered to train as a welder. He was getting older, and thought that something with less physical effort was the way to go. The shipyard hard a bunch of wildcat strikes over welding. Some were about demanding retention of riveting.
The concept of a strike on a voluntary railway is an interesting one. But not logically impossible, however.
Have you met the people who run volunteer organisations for no pay? Some of them would start an argument with themselves. A fair number do.
That and splitting. Five minutes after you post the naming conventions up, you’d have the
- The Ffestiniog Railway - The Ffestiniog Real Railway - The Continuity Ffestiniog Railway - The Original Ffestiniog Railway - The People’s Ffestiniog Liberation Front Railway
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
Coal Actualisation Specialist?
Not all eventualities. Sometimes Oil Transfer Monitor, as one would, for example, on the Ffestiniog (and possibly others).
That would be whole other specialism. Do you want to cause a strike?
During WWII, my grandfather, who was a riveter by trade, volunteered to train as a welder. He was getting older, and thought that something with less physical effort was the way to go. The shipyard hard a bunch of wildcat strikes over welding. Some were about demanding retention of riveting.
The concept of a strike on a voluntary railway is an interesting one. But not logically impossible, however.
Oh, it happens. Managing volunteers - especially volunteers doing hard work - can be very difficult. They don't have to be there, and egos and friendships/rivalries can be hard to manage.
And I think something similar happened on the West Somerset Railway a few years back.
One of the reasons I stopped working on a preserved railway was the fact I could not stand the manager running the place. Sometimes a 'thankyou' goes a million miles.
DeSantis is an interesting character, to say the least. Most here would, I think, admire his educational and sports accomplishments: "After high school, DeSantis studied history at Yale University. He was captain of Yale's varsity baseball team; he played outfield, and as a senior in 2001 he had the team's best batting average at .336.[21][22][23][24] DeSantis was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and of the St. Elmo Society, one of Yale's secret societies.[20][25][26] While attending Yale, he worked a variety of jobs, including as an electrician's assistant and a coach at a baseball camp.[13] DeSantis graduated from Yale in 2001 with a B.A., magna cum laude.[27]
After Yale, DeSantis taught history and coached for a year at Darlington School in Georgia,[28] then attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 2005 with a Juris Doctor, cum laude.[29] At Harvard, he was business manager for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_DeSantis#Early_life_and_education
(As a Catholic, he would have faced discrimination at both Yale and Harvard. Is that one of his reasons for his pugnacity?)
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Are we sure about that ? They do claim a very broad curriculum.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
Coal Actualisation Specialist?
Not all eventualities. Sometimes Oil Transfer Monitor, as one would, for example, on the Ffestiniog (and possibly others).
That would be whole other specialism. Do you want to cause a strike?
During WWII, my grandfather, who was a riveter by trade, volunteered to train as a welder. He was getting older, and thought that something with less physical effort was the way to go. The shipyard hard a bunch of wildcat strikes over welding. Some were about demanding retention of riveting.
The concept of a strike on a voluntary railway is an interesting one. But not logically impossible, however.
Have you met the people who run volunteer organisations for no pay? Some of them would start an argument with themselves. A fair number do.
That and splitting. Five minutes after you post the naming conventions up, you’d have the
- The Ffestiniog Railway - The Ffestiniog Real Railway - The Continuity Ffestiniog Railway - The Original Ffestiniog Railway - The People’s Ffestiniog Liberation Front Railway
Sure, I've known some of that in my time! Though the definition of a strike includes the concept of 'employer' and the employer-employee contract, which isn't obvious in the case of volunteers!
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Are we sure about that ? They do claim a very broad curriculum.
It’s Winchester that teaches the sparkies to look down on the chippies, who look down on the brickies, who look down on the scaffolders.
Eton is where to underpiners go - *everyone* looks down on them.
Is the modern world how Alexandra Kollantai imagined because we have accepted a lot of communism’s ideas, or was it going to be like this anyway under capitalism?
Labours plans for childcare, announced this week, reminded me of ‘The state is responsible for the upbringing of children’ section.
“ Just as housework withers away, so the obligations of parents to their children wither away gradually until finally society assumes the full responsibility. Under capitalism children were frequently, too frequently, a heavy and unbearable burden on the proletarian family. Communist society will come to the aid of the parents. In Soviet Russia the Commissariats of Public Education and of Social Welfare are already doing much to assist the family. We already have homes for very small babies, creches, kindergartens, children’s colonies and homes, hospitals and health resorts for sick children. restaurants, free lunches at school and free distribution of text books, warm clothing and shoes to schoolchildren. All this goes to show that the responsibility for the child is passing from the family to the collective.”
Except the Labour scheme is purely voluntary, for parents who actually desire that help.
The measures contemplated in that essay also seem to be voluntary: "communist not intending to take children away from their parents or to tear the baby from the breast of its mother, and neither is it planning to take, violent measures to destroy the family. No such thing!"
And UK society today does feel a shared responsibility for children that we want the state to bear -- education, child benefits, social services looking out for vulnerable children, etc. Like many other aspects of felt shared responsibility this has shifted from being something informally handled in local communities and by individual charity to being something we expect the state to resource and facilitate. That seems to me generally of a piece with the expanding role of the state over the last century plus.
Not quite. Universal free education to age 18 is a developed world universal and has been around for decades. Child benefit for most merely gives back a small amount of the tax you pay, and if you pay a lot of tax you don't get it at all. Social services engagement with families and children involves a tiny percent of the total. That massive engagement should occur with complex needs and special cases is called being a civilized country.
Outside the urban world of movers, shakers, wealthy and nannies,parents and grandparents/other family do nearly all the heavy lifting of child care. In my small town existence it is quite moving to be around (doing my bit!) at the infant/junior school
I wasn’t particularly getting at Labour, because what they’re offering is only an extension of what is already on offer, but it just struck me how a reasonably uncontroversial and possibly popular policy nowadays can be pretty much lifted from a communist essay from a hundred years ago.
Well, the communist essay is deliberately structuring its proposals as "this is a modest and natural extension of how society has been changing even in capitalist countries, not a radical departure imposed on people from the top down", so the convergence with modern capitalist political proposals is not so very strange. But the essay's central idea that "The family is ceasing to be necessary either to its members or to the nation as a whole", that "the family is doomed to disappear" and that "the worker-mother must learn not to differentiate between yours and mine; she must remember that there are only our children, the children of Russia’s communist workers" -- these all are failed predictions in either communist or capitalist societies, and if Labour increases the state provision of nursery and childcare it doesn't seem very likely that this is going to be a step towards the dissolution of the nuclear family.
Yes, although I think “the family is ceasing to be necessary…” is not as much of a failed prediction as the others.
On the subject of failed predictions, is there an easy way to find mine from a year ago for 2023? Probably the New Year's Day thread, but how to find it?
I don't know about yours but I kept a copy of mine (saddo that I am).
PB predictions 2023
1. Ukraine stalemate to continue throughout the year with little change. ✔︎ 2. Inflation to remain above 5% by year end. ✘ 3. Trump still to be the leading GOP POTUS candidate by year end. ✔︎ 4. May local elections to be a record loss for the Tories. ✘ 5. …despite which, Sunak to still be PM at the end of the year. ✔︎ 6. Labour polling lead to continue in to 10% - 20% range through the year. ✔︎ 7. FTSE100 at 6,500 by year end. ✘ 8. Australia to win the Ashes this summer. ✘ 9. France to win the RU world cup. ✘ 10. England to win the Women’s Football World Cup. ✘
4/10 - Leonesque levels of prediction but a marked improvement on last year.
I'd give you #8 there as they retained the ashes
But possibly take away #6? It hasn't fallen below 10, but there have been plenty of 20+.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
Coal Actualisation Specialist?
Not all eventualities. Sometimes Oil Transfer Monitor, as one would, for example, on the Ffestiniog (and possibly others).
That would be whole other specialism. Do you want to cause a strike?
During WWII, my grandfather, who was a riveter by trade, volunteered to train as a welder. He was getting older, and thought that something with less physical effort was the way to go. The shipyard hard a bunch of wildcat strikes over welding. Some were about demanding retention of riveting.
The concept of a strike on a voluntary railway is an interesting one. But not logically impossible, however.
Have you met the people who run volunteer organisations for no pay? Some of them would start an argument with themselves. A fair number do.
That and splitting. Five minutes after you post the naming conventions up, you’d have the
- The Ffestiniog Railway - The Ffestiniog Real Railway - The Continuity Ffestiniog Railway - The Original Ffestiniog Railway - The People’s Ffestiniog Liberation Front Railway
Sure, I've known some of that in my time! Though the definition of a strike includes the concept of 'employer' and the employer-employee contract, which isn't obvious in the case of volunteers!
Don’t worry. *Someone* will spend their weekend writing 800 pages of bumf to create all the concepts needed.
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
I am not an expert on this but I think (from looking at the information from various organisations working on energy saving) that you have this the wrong way round.
The A++ system is the old system that existed in both the UK and EU for many years. The A to G system is the new system that is being introduced both in the UK and the EU.
So are we giving them more time to change the labelling than the EU is? Presumably they wouldn't have bothered to put seperate energy ratings on unless they have to or felt there was some advantage in showing A++ still here. Although I note that even when the rules are harmonised again they will apparently still have to print two labels, showing the same thing, one with a UK flag and one with the EU flag. Presumably tested twice too? What a colossal waste of time and money.
Well no. Since you are so fanatically desperate for everything to be about the EU and Brexit you haven't even bothered to find out that the energy standards for light bulbs are not even an EU derived regulation. They are an international standard set by the International Electrotechnical Commission. All the signatory countries/organisations are party to the decisions and the only thing that has changed since Brexit is that the UK now has its own seat at the table rather than that being decided on our behalf by the EU.
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
It’s not the case that we are less stringent - see this…
It appears in my reply I might have been too cynical having come across the issue and finding a web site that confirmed my suspicions having bought light bulbs with what appeared to be a nonsense rating.
Not sure why they wanted to change power usage to kw/1000h though.
kW/1000h is not a unit. It is meaningless. You could have kWh/1000h - is that what they actually mean?
Yep, see my reply to @OnlyLivingBoy . That was my mistake and not a mistake on the label. It was kwh/1000h.
Would be better if they used Joules in my opinion.
Isn’t Joules busy right now getting ready for his Annual Hootenanny?
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
It’s not the case that we are less stringent - see this…
It appears in my reply I might have been too cynical having come across the issue and finding a web site that confirmed my suspicions having bought light bulbs with what appeared to be a nonsense rating.
Not sure why they wanted to change power usage to kw/1000h though.
kW/1000h is not a unit. It is meaningless. You could have kWh/1000h - is that what they actually mean?
Yep, see my reply to @OnlyLivingBoy . That was my mistake and not a mistake on the label. It was kwh/1000h.
Would be better if they used Joules in my opinion.
Isn’t Joules busy right now getting ready for his Annual Hootenanny?
They do time it and edit well though, so it looks live when you’re watching it.
Many years ago I got to go to the studio. The script was a work of art. The stagehands had precise instructions for where to move the hands of the big background wooden clock prop at different parts of the programme to support the illusion of a live broadcast. They would stand there behind the clock, holding the big hand in the right place for the right camera shot.
Some sources say that they might be Russian air defence missiles that have gone astray. Possible, but as not-an-expert I wouldn't think they would strike like that. Then again, who knows with North Korean missiles...
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
I am not an expert on this but I think (from looking at the information from various organisations working on energy saving) that you have this the wrong way round.
The A++ system is the old system that existed in both the UK and EU for many years. The A to G system is the new system that is being introduced both in the UK and the EU.
So are we giving them more time to change the labelling than the EU is? Presumably they wouldn't have bothered to put seperate energy ratings on unless they have to or felt there was some advantage in showing A++ still here. Although I note that even when the rules are harmonised again they will apparently still have to print two labels, showing the same thing, one with a UK flag and one with the EU flag. Presumably tested twice too? What a colossal waste of time and money.
Well no. Since you are so fanatically desperate for everything to be about the EU and Brexit you haven't even bothered to find out that the energy standards for light bulbs are not even an EU derived regulation. They are an international standard set by the International Electrotechnical Commission. All the signatory countries/organisations are party to the decisions and the only thing that has changed since Brexit is that the UK now has its own seat at the table rather than that being decided on our behalf by the EU.
The IEC is another example of an international body that has done an enormous amount to quietly reduce the friction of world trade, provide common standards and generally make things better. In a very quiet and sensible way, really.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
In my limited experience, female firemen liked to be called 'firemen' and not 'fireperson'. They tended to be much more bothered about the lack of facilities for women at many railways.
The following is a good talk given by Joanne Crompton on these sorts of issues, which ruffled some feathers (it should not have done): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Z-fbYrNVD0
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I hope American voters take this to heart and vote for the man who stay married to one woman and not for the serial adulterer.
A picture of Joe Biden with his second wife Jill
Evil and libellous people wrongly claim this shows her as the Biden family’s 15 year old babysitter, when Joe was still married to his first wife
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
Coal Actualisation Specialist?
Not all eventualities. Sometimes Oil Transfer Monitor, as one would, for example, on the Ffestiniog (and possibly others).
That would be whole other specialism. Do you want to cause a strike?
During WWII, my grandfather, who was a riveter by trade, volunteered to train as a welder. He was getting older, and thought that something with less physical effort was the way to go. The shipyard hard a bunch of wildcat strikes over welding. Some were about demanding retention of riveting.
The concept of a strike on a voluntary railway is an interesting one. But not logically impossible, however.
Oh, it happens. Managing volunteers - especially volunteers doing hard work - can be very difficult. They don't have to be there, and egos and friendships/rivalries can be hard to manage.
And I think something similar happened on the West Somerset Railway a few years back.
One of the reasons I stopped working on a preserved railway was the fact I could not stand the manager running the place. Sometimes a 'thankyou' goes a million miles.
The problem with volunteer organisations is often the people who run them. Imagine someone whose *hobby* is process and politics. Imagine how that can go wrong.
My rowing club is run as a charitable *business* - there’s a CEO, appointed by the trustees. No cliques and manoeuvring in the boat bays or the pub. So restful.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
The difference between Capitalism and Communism is this -
Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Communism is the reverse.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
Not sure the evidence backs up the statement "Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it". The vast majority of people seem to me to be quite happy to get on with life and leave the Game of Thrones BS to a minority of egotists who have a void in their hearts to fill. Obviously, our more conservative-minded folk, also find comfort in the structure and rules that this creates. Our more radical folk, focus on the inherent silliness of the whole thing and like to tear it down.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
It’s not the case that we are less stringent - see this…
It appears in my reply I might have been too cynical having come across the issue and finding a web site that confirmed my suspicions having bought light bulbs with what appeared to be a nonsense rating.
Not sure why they wanted to change power usage to kw/1000h though.
kW/1000h is not a unit. It is meaningless. You could have kWh/1000h - is that what they actually mean?
Yep, see my reply to @OnlyLivingBoy . That was my mistake and not a mistake on the label. It was kwh/1000h.
Would be better if they used Joules in my opinion.
Isn’t Joules busy right now getting ready for his Annual Hootenanny?
They do time it and edit well though, so it looks live when you’re watching it.
Many years ago I got to go to the studio. The script was a work of art. The stagehands had precise instructions for where to move the hands of the big background wooden clock prop at different parts of the programme to support the illusion of a live broadcast. They would stand there behind the clock, holding the big hand in the right place for the right camera shot.
Very cool story, always like the behind-the-scenes stuff. Live broadcasts are very expensive, so they always tend to record things ahead of time other than the news and sport.
Anything remotely political or comedy tends to need to go through compliance, so HIGNFY gets recorded for about two hours on Thursday, and they spend most of Friday editing it down with the lawyers!
I did once go and see Mock The Week, which was also about two hours of mostly unbroadcastable jokes from which they somehow got down to 30 minutes of television! They had enough material for several DVDs of outtakes, most of which featured a certain Mr Frankie Boyle and his total lack of filter.
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
I am not an expert on this but I think (from looking at the information from various organisations working on energy saving) that you have this the wrong way round.
The A++ system is the old system that existed in both the UK and EU for many years. The A to G system is the new system that is being introduced both in the UK and the EU.
So are we giving them more time to change the labelling than the EU is? Presumably they wouldn't have bothered to put seperate energy ratings on unless they have to or felt there was some advantage in showing A++ still here. Although I note that even when the rules are harmonised again they will apparently still have to print two labels, showing the same thing, one with a UK flag and one with the EU flag. Presumably tested twice too? What a colossal waste of time and money.
Well no. Since you are so fanatically desperate for everything to be about the EU and Brexit you haven't even bothered to find out that the energy standards for light bulbs are not even an EU derived regulation. They are an international standard set by the International Electrotechnical Commission. All the signatory countries/organisations are party to the decisions and the only thing that has changed since Brexit is that the UK now has its own seat at the table rather than that being decided on our behalf by the EU.
The IEC is another example of an international body that has done an enormous amount to quietly reduce the friction of world trade, provide common standards and generally make things better. In a very quiet and sensible way, really.
Bit like the ITU.
And the UK now has a seat on most of the global standards bodies, many of which work quietly and away from day-to-day politics.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
I have no problem with meritocratic hierarchies. The problems come when the drivers start a private 'drivers school' allowing their sons to miss the experience building steps and jump straight into the 'drivers fast stream'.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
It’s not the case that we are less stringent - see this…
It appears in my reply I might have been too cynical having come across the issue and finding a web site that confirmed my suspicions having bought light bulbs with what appeared to be a nonsense rating.
Not sure why they wanted to change power usage to kw/1000h though.
kW/1000h is not a unit. It is meaningless. You could have kWh/1000h - is that what they actually mean?
Yep, see my reply to @OnlyLivingBoy . That was my mistake and not a mistake on the label. It was kwh/1000h.
Would be better if they used Joules in my opinion.
Isn’t Joules busy right now getting ready for his Annual Hootenanny?
They do time it and edit well though, so it looks live when you’re watching it.
They should prerecord the London fireworks too. Set them off at around 7pm. That way, people wouldn't have to fester in the cold for hours on end, could get a couple of pints in afterwards, and not have to worry about missing the last train home.
Oh, and yes, I see that they have gone with fireworks again this year. How very imaginative.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
I have no problem with meritocratic hierarchies. The problems come when the drivers start a private 'drivers school' allowing their sons to miss the experience building steps and jump straight into the 'drivers fast stream'.
Oh, that happened in several forms. Firstly, if you were in the 'in' crowd, your sons would be first in the queue to get jobs at the depot. Secondly, it was up to foremen to decide on who got which tasks, and in-favour people - such as the sons of friends - would get tasks which gained them experience quickly. Thirdly, access to the few tests that were required could be limited.
I've read a good book by an old steam driver who found it took him years longer than it should to become a fireman, simple because he did not have contacts. He was lucky to get a job as a junior as a boy, but found other lads, who he felt worked less hard, found promotion quickly. He ended up an express driver, so it probably wasn't capability.
Also, if you argued with the union reps, they could find interesting ways to make you suffer.
From everything I've read, and from talking to some old guys, BR in steam days was far from meritocratic.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
Not sure the evidence backs up the statement "Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it". The vast majority of people seem to me to be quite happy to get on with life and leave the Game of Thrones BS to a minority of egotists who have a void in their hearts to fill. Obviously, our more conservative-minded folk, also find comfort in the structure and rules that this creates. Our more radical folk, focus on the inherent silliness of the whole thing and like to tear it down.
I think this is right to large extent. I think people like to be in control of their own lives but mostly have little interest in being in control of anyone elses. Being 'on top' strikes most people as being rather silly.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
I have no problem with meritocratic hierarchies. The problems come when the drivers start a private 'drivers school' allowing their sons to miss the experience building steps and jump straight into the 'drivers fast stream'.
Er, historically, that’s what Guilds were (in a large part) about.
The problem with “meritocracy” as the cure for this is that it gives the current holders a believe in their Divine Right to be On Top. For didn’t they not rise According To The Order Of Things?
Look at the collection of pluperfect assholes running the Post Office.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
Not sure the evidence backs up the statement "Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it". The vast majority of people seem to me to be quite happy to get on with life and leave the Game of Thrones BS to a minority of egotists who have a void in their hearts to fill. Obviously, our more conservative-minded folk, also find comfort in the structure and rules that this creates. Our more radical folk, focus on the inherent silliness of the whole thing and like to tear it down.
I think this is right to large extent. I think people like to be in control of their own lives but mostly have little interest in being in control of anyone elses. Being 'on top' strikes most people as being rather silly.
Having autonomy at work is a good place to be.
Of course, this needs a boss who is able to take it on trust that you will get done what you are tasked to do, in your own way. Some bosses are very reluctant to do this, despite the evidence, and insist on micromanaging. And then people leave.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
I have no problem with meritocratic hierarchies. The problems come when the drivers start a private 'drivers school' allowing their sons to miss the experience building steps and jump straight into the 'drivers fast stream'.
Oh, that happened in several forms. Firstly, if you were in the 'in' crowd, your sons would be first in the queue to get jobs at the depot. Secondly, it was up to foremen to decide on who got which tasks, and in-favour people - such as the sons of friends - would get tasks which gained them experience quickly. Thirdly, access to the few tests that were required could be limited.
I've read a good book by an old steam driver who found it took him years longer than it should to become a fireman, simple because he did not have contacts. He was lucky to get a job as a junior as a boy, but found other lads, who he felt worked less hard, found promotion quickly. He ended up an express driver, so it probably wasn't capability.
Also, if you argued with the union reps, they could find interesting ways to make you suffer.
From everything I've read, and from talking to some old guys, BR in steam days was far from meritocratic.
To get the job as a TfL driver (considered a plumb job), you have to wait for years. A friend was told that the best way in was to join TfL and network with the right people in the Union and the rest of the system. Ironically, he ended up as a station manager, earning more than a driver!
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
Not sure the evidence backs up the statement "Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it". The vast majority of people seem to me to be quite happy to get on with life and leave the Game of Thrones BS to a minority of egotists who have a void in their hearts to fill. Obviously, our more conservative-minded folk, also find comfort in the structure and rules that this creates. Our more radical folk, focus on the inherent silliness of the whole thing and like to tear it down.
I think this is right to large extent. I think people like to be in control of their own lives but mostly have little interest in being in control of anyone elses. Being 'on top' strikes most people as being rather silly.
Having autonomy at work is a good place to be.
Of course, this needs a boss who is able to take it on trust that you will get done what you are tasked to do, in your own way. Some bosses are very reluctant to do this, despite the evidence, and insist on micromanaging. And then people leave.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
I am not an expert on this but I think (from looking at the information from various organisations working on energy saving) that you have this the wrong way round.
The A++ system is the old system that existed in both the UK and EU for many years. The A to G system is the new system that is being introduced both in the UK and the EU.
So are we giving them more time to change the labelling than the EU is? Presumably they wouldn't have bothered to put seperate energy ratings on unless they have to or felt there was some advantage in showing A++ still here. Although I note that even when the rules are harmonised again they will apparently still have to print two labels, showing the same thing, one with a UK flag and one with the EU flag. Presumably tested twice too? What a colossal waste of time and money.
When will you guys realise it wasn’t about the economics?
You don’t value the philosophical freedoms and therefore the costs seem pointless. Someone who does value them thinks it makes sense.
Economics won’t sway people’s view
I guess if people value seeing two labels on a product with a union jack on one of them and like paying extra for that privilege then there's really no helping them.
No they just don’t see it as a negative in the way that you do - to the extent that, even though you have been proven wrong you continue to use it to disparage those fellow citizens that you clearly despise
Police killed Niani Finlayson seconds after responding to her 911 call, video shows
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/29/la-police-fatally-shot-niani-finlayson-body-camera ...This was not Shelton’s first fatal shooting. On 11 June 2020, the deputy killed Michael Thomas, 61, also while responding to a call for potential domestic violence. That killing was not caught on camera, but Thomas’s girlfriend later said she and Thomas had been having a verbal argument and that Thomas had tried to stop the officers from entering his home. It was weeks after George Floyd’s murder, and his family said he had been frightened police would kill him. Thomas was unarmed and Shelton shot him in the chest. He was not prosecuted...
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
It is hard to disentangle cause and effect as happy and stable couples do tend to marry and stay that way.
It is a big factor in social mobility (or the lack of it) too. There is a big class divide in how stable marriages are, and the effects on children. Bad economic times are tough on relationships.
Incidentally I would recommend this history of marriage (from a rather American perspective). Marriage has always been about economics, or at least until recently was:
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
Not sure the evidence backs up the statement "Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it". The vast majority of people seem to me to be quite happy to get on with life and leave the Game of Thrones BS to a minority of egotists who have a void in their hearts to fill. Obviously, our more conservative-minded folk, also find comfort in the structure and rules that this creates. Our more radical folk, focus on the inherent silliness of the whole thing and like to tear it down.
I think this is right to large extent. I think people like to be in control of their own lives but mostly have little interest in being in control of anyone elses. Being 'on top' strikes most people as being rather silly.
Having autonomy at work is a good place to be.
Of course, this needs a boss who is able to take it on trust that you will get done what you are tasked to do, in your own way. Some bosses are very reluctant to do this, despite the evidence, and insist on micromanaging. And then people leave.
The reason I moved to consulting many years ago. I never had any interest in managing people and now I just do a task, in my own way and with no oversight and am judged exclusively on results. I would hate to go back to employment no matter what level I was at in an organisation.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
I have no problem with meritocratic hierarchies. The problems come when the drivers start a private 'drivers school' allowing their sons to miss the experience building steps and jump straight into the 'drivers fast stream'.
Oh, that happened in several forms. Firstly, if you were in the 'in' crowd, your sons would be first in the queue to get jobs at the depot. Secondly, it was up to foremen to decide on who got which tasks, and in-favour people - such as the sons of friends - would get tasks which gained them experience quickly. Thirdly, access to the few tests that were required could be limited.
I've read a good book by an old steam driver who found it took him years longer than it should to become a fireman, simple because he did not have contacts. He was lucky to get a job as a junior as a boy, but found other lads, who he felt worked less hard, found promotion quickly. He ended up an express driver, so it probably wasn't capability.
Also, if you argued with the union reps, they could find interesting ways to make you suffer.
From everything I've read, and from talking to some old guys, BR in steam days was far from meritocratic.
Yes, seems to happen in all orgs but I'm now a lot less forgiving of it having read
The Rise And Decline of Nations – Economic, Growth, Stagflation, And Social Rigidities
It might be in our nature to put our children above others but it ossifies society.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
Not sure the evidence backs up the statement "Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it". The vast majority of people seem to me to be quite happy to get on with life and leave the Game of Thrones BS to a minority of egotists who have a void in their hearts to fill. Obviously, our more conservative-minded folk, also find comfort in the structure and rules that this creates. Our more radical folk, focus on the inherent silliness of the whole thing and like to tear it down.
I think this is right to large extent. I think people like to be in control of their own lives but mostly have little interest in being in control of anyone elses. Being 'on top' strikes most people as being rather silly.
Having autonomy at work is a good place to be.
Of course, this needs a boss who is able to take it on trust that you will get done what you are tasked to do, in your own way. Some bosses are very reluctant to do this, despite the evidence, and insist on micromanaging. And then people leave.
The whole point of an open liberal capitalist society is so that there is an infinity of autonomous niches for those who want them, and most of all, an infinity of ways to never have a boss.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it. It's why almost no society, however poor, however unequal, has seriously attempted to rid itself of the rich and powerful. Even communist societies simply change the people who are rich and powerful.
Not sure the evidence backs up the statement "Most humans like hierarchy and yearn to be at the top of it". The vast majority of people seem to me to be quite happy to get on with life and leave the Game of Thrones BS to a minority of egotists who have a void in their hearts to fill. Obviously, our more conservative-minded folk, also find comfort in the structure and rules that this creates. Our more radical folk, focus on the inherent silliness of the whole thing and like to tear it down.
I think this is right to large extent. I think people like to be in control of their own lives but mostly have little interest in being in control of anyone elses. Being 'on top' strikes most people as being rather silly.
Having autonomy at work is a good place to be.
Of course, this needs a boss who is able to take it on trust that you will get done what you are tasked to do, in your own way. Some bosses are very reluctant to do this, despite the evidence, and insist on micromanaging. And then people leave.
The reason I moved to consulting many years ago. I never had any interest in managing people and now I just do a task, in my own way and with no oversight and am judged exclusively on results. I would hate to go back to employment no matter what level I was at in an organisation.
Being your own boss and choosing your own working hours is an exorbitant privilege. I’ve not been bossed around since I was at school. I still cherish this luxury
If someone tried to boss me now I’d probably hit them. No joke
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
I have no problem with meritocratic hierarchies. The problems come when the drivers start a private 'drivers school' allowing their sons to miss the experience building steps and jump straight into the 'drivers fast stream'.
Er, historically, that’s what Guilds were (in a large part) about.
The problem with “meritocracy” as the cure for this is that it gives the current holders a believe in their Divine Right to be On Top. For didn’t they not rise According To The Order Of Things?
Look at the collection of pluperfect assholes running the Post Office.
And when the meretricious succeed they may well break the system for their children.
I think it should be called Young's paradox. That from Michael you always seem to get Toby.
Trump won’t be convicted of anything . Finding a jury that would unanimously agree seems very unlikely . You’re always bound to have one cult member that will refuse to .
Trump has been found guilty by a jury in the past. The (first) Jean Carroll case was in front of a jury. A 2022 jury found the Trump Corporation guilty of fraud.
Some cases are not in front of juries (as with the New York fraud case), so you can be convicted without a jury.
For background and AIUI, the New York Fraud Case is not in front of a Jury because Trump's lawyer chose not to ask for one. The option was there if Alina Habba had ticked the box on the form; she did not do so.
I don't think that application would have required the Judge to comply, however.
How does incompetence (failing to tick a box on a form) = defamation?
She's been making a lot of inflammatory public statements in line with Trump's position.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
I think that bollocks.
If anything has destabilised marriage it is that women have resources of their own now, and don't have to put up with feckless men playing away.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
I have no problem with meritocratic hierarchies. The problems come when the drivers start a private 'drivers school' allowing their sons to miss the experience building steps and jump straight into the 'drivers fast stream'.
Oh, that happened in several forms. Firstly, if you were in the 'in' crowd, your sons would be first in the queue to get jobs at the depot. Secondly, it was up to foremen to decide on who got which tasks, and in-favour people - such as the sons of friends - would get tasks which gained them experience quickly. Thirdly, access to the few tests that were required could be limited.
I've read a good book by an old steam driver who found it took him years longer than it should to become a fireman, simple because he did not have contacts. He was lucky to get a job as a junior as a boy, but found other lads, who he felt worked less hard, found promotion quickly. He ended up an express driver, so it probably wasn't capability.
Also, if you argued with the union reps, they could find interesting ways to make you suffer.
From everything I've read, and from talking to some old guys, BR in steam days was far from meritocratic.
Yes, seems to happen in all orgs but I'm now a lot less forgiving of it having read
The Rise And Decline of Nations – Economic, Growth, Stagflation, And Social Rigidities
It might be in our nature to put our children above others but it ossifies society.
I actually think that's going to have much less of an effect than it did. I've said this before, but I knew two men, both of whom were at school in the late 1970s in a mining area. They were both told they were going to work down the mine, so there was little point in teaching them. In that area, there wasn't much other choice in occupation for such lads.
Nowadays there are fewer mass employers, even in localised areas, and a massively wider range of jobs. If our son decided to go into programming or chip design, we might be able to help him on the ladder. We have friends in other technical areas that we *might* be able to provide help with, but if he wants to go into the arts, or large areas of science, or medicine, or the law, then we've got few, if any, useful contacts.
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
I am not an expert on this but I think (from looking at the information from various organisations working on energy saving) that you have this the wrong way round.
The A++ system is the old system that existed in both the UK and EU for many years. The A to G system is the new system that is being introduced both in the UK and the EU.
So are we giving them more time to change the labelling than the EU is? Presumably they wouldn't have bothered to put seperate energy ratings on unless they have to or felt there was some advantage in showing A++ still here. Although I note that even when the rules are harmonised again they will apparently still have to print two labels, showing the same thing, one with a UK flag and one with the EU flag. Presumably tested twice too? What a colossal waste of time and money.
Well no. Since you are so fanatically desperate for everything to be about the EU and Brexit you haven't even bothered to find out that the energy standards for light bulbs are not even an EU derived regulation. They are an international standard set by the International Electrotechnical Commission. All the signatory countries/organisations are party to the decisions and the only thing that has changed since Brexit is that the UK now has its own seat at the table rather than that being decided on our behalf by the EU.
But we get our own entirely pointless seperate label thanks to Brexit so that's a big win.
Police killed Niani Finlayson seconds after responding to her 911 call, video shows
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/29/la-police-fatally-shot-niani-finlayson-body-camera ...This was not Shelton’s first fatal shooting. On 11 June 2020, the deputy killed Michael Thomas, 61, also while responding to a call for potential domestic violence. That killing was not caught on camera, but Thomas’s girlfriend later said she and Thomas had been having a verbal argument and that Thomas had tried to stop the officers from entering his home. It was weeks after George Floyd’s murder, and his family said he had been frightened police would kill him. Thomas was unarmed and Shelton shot him in the chest. He was not prosecuted...
It’s horrific . A woman calls for help and the police kill her .
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Perhaps by having a relationship/life based on genuine equality and respect?
It does meaning cutting out the more interesting social establishment in port cities (for a start), though.
Apparently over $100 billion has been spent on autonomous car development.
No wonder the companies are so keen to persuade the gullible they've developed some magic sauce.
It’s a classic example of something that turned out to be way more difficult than imagined, a “99% there” problem, where most of the money is yet to be spent.
The solution is now much more likely to involve reconstruction of the existing roads, or building new towns around autonomous transport with grade separations and traffic lights.
Senior car execs have been duped by the techies - could it be they are too used to being chauffeured around to appreciate the complexities of driving?
It’s a combination of a decade of cheap money, and the (utopian tech bro) idea that one company would end up dominating the space, where in future millions of automated taxis would replace traditional private transport. The likes of Google, Apple, and Tesla, had access to plenty of VC money, and GM felt they had to get either involved or miss out.
The most difficult bit, as we’ve discussed on here many times before, is where the technology can do most of the driving, but can and will disengage itself at short notice, meaning that the human needs to stay awake and alert at all times - something which humans find quite difficult, even the professional test drivers.
Meanwhile, that old favourite of new car technology, the Mercedes-Benz S-Class, has what looks to be the best system deployed so far in the new 2024 model, with very little hype. It’s a “Level 3” system up to 40mph, meaning the car drives itself and Mercedes are insured for any damage it causes. https://carbuzz.com/news/mercedes-announces-first-level-3-self-driving-for-s-class-and-eqs-sedan You can’t use it to drop the kids at school or collect you from the pub yet though, which is what most people think a self-driving car should be able to do, a taxi without the human driver.
BIB: Mick Lynch just texted me to say that is why train drivers get paid so much. Their job is to maintain concentration through 99.999 per cent tedium so they can react instantly to obstructions.
Whereas bus drivers can be paid about half train drivers because all they do is collect the fares, act as the police force, do social care for the elderly and drive the bus, 100% attention all the time, on roads full of drunks, druggies, under age bikers, boys showing off and delivery drivers double parking.
Indeed. My bus driver mate always said that if they don't want to pay their fares, that's fine because he doesn't want to get stabbed over 50p.
That said, what car-driving PBers might not have noticed is there are lots of lady bus drivers nowadays, thanks mainly to power steering.
There are a few lady train drivers nowadays, too.
On steam locomotives too!
Really? Diesels I can understand, but steam train driving is a rather mucky job.
Yes. There are female drivers and firepersons* on the Keighley and Woorth Valley Railway.
*Female firemen doesn't sound right, but neither does firewomen or firepersons. Maybe "coal shovelers"?
Footplate staff covers all eventualities.
The problem is that 'footplate staff' includes both driver and fireman, which are somewhat different roles, with different amounts of prestige. Woe betide anyone calling a top-link driver a 'fireman'.
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
It’s funny how apes will assemble themselves into a hierarchy without much external pressure.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
I have no problem with meritocratic hierarchies. The problems come when the drivers start a private 'drivers school' allowing their sons to miss the experience building steps and jump straight into the 'drivers fast stream'.
Er, historically, that’s what Guilds were (in a large part) about.
The problem with “meritocracy” as the cure for this is that it gives the current holders a believe in their Divine Right to be On Top. For didn’t they not rise According To The Order Of Things?
Look at the collection of pluperfect assholes running the Post Office.
And when the meretricious succeed they may well break the system for their children.
I think it should be called Young's paradox. That from Michael you always seem to get Toby.
That was indeed the meretricious succeeding the meritorious ?
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
Interesting and wrong. There is a gigantic community of all ages who get married and stay married, even if that is smaller than it was.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
I think that bollocks.
If anything has destabilised marriage it is that women have resources of their own now, and don't have to put up with feckless men playing away.
Marriage works for some and not others. My wife worked throughout our marriage, and we share 'the chores', FWIW.
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
LOL, that's hilarious. The idea that men suppressed their testosterone and stayed loyal is quite ridiculous. Many men had affairs and/or saw prostitutes, and the women were trapped in their marriages.
Women were routinely abused within marriage by their husbands and their rights suppressed. Not the men's testosterone.
Just changed a light bulb and noticed that the packet had two seperate energy efficiency ratings on it - one for GB only rating it A++ and one for the EU and NI rating it E. I wonder what I'm supposed to deduce from this, other than (a) we have obviously already diverged from the EU on these standards, and ours are - what a surprise - less stringent; and (b) the seperate GB rating (whose sole purpose is to mislead me about the product's environmental credentials) will have imposed an extra cost that I will have paid. Another Brexit dividend!
OK I might have an answer for this having had a similar experience with new Christmas lights which were rated 'E' even though they were LEDs.
The next thing I noticed was the Wattage figure given at 2kw. 2kw for a string of led bulbs?????
Then I noticed the small print 2kw/1000 hours so actually 2W and very efficient for 240 bulbs.
I looked on the internet and saw that there is a new way of expressing energy efficiency because of the confusion caused in the past by using wattage for brightness (which it isn't) which is then confusing when buying LEDs which are expressed in wattage with an equivalent wattage for brightness (which of course is bonkers but what we have been doing rather than using you know an actual brightness measure). Invariable someone somewhere has ordered a 60W led bulb and got a nice suntan.
The new scheme rather than simplifying things will probably cause more confusion and one obvious one appears to be a light bulb apparently, but incorrectly, rated at 2kw (when they are 2kw/1000h) with a response of 'F**k me, that will be an E rating then.
The E rating makes no sense.
Expressing kW in per hour terms makes no sense because it is a unit of power, ie energy per unit of time (hence kWh, power times time, is a unit of energy). Perhaps they meant it used 2kWh of energy in 1000 hours, ie was 2W?
It’s nearly as bad as using watts as an expression of brightness in the first place, hence LED bulbs saying “8W (60W equivalent)” on the packaging.
Maybe we need a better scale of light intensity? I’m all for candle equivalents. After all we use horse power for engine power!
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
LOL, that's hilarious. The idea that men suppressed their testosterone and stayed loyal is quite ridiculous. Many men had affairs and/or saw prostitutes, and the women were trapped in their marriages.
Women were routinely abused within marriage by their husbands and their rights suppressed. Not the men's testosterone.
I’m talking about nice guys. Alpha but nice
Clearly the bastards will be bastards and the Betas of PB will be glad for anything they can get
Those interested in families may want to read Melissa Kearney's book, "The Two-Parent Privilege".
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
I wonder what more is required to amend this situation, within what is possible. That permanent marriage in decent co-existence is optimal is self evident and obvious to almost everyone. Marriage is neither compulsory nor forbidden nor difficult to achieve (except for the less well off who want to marry a foreigner) and few would want it otherwise.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
The conflation in this discourse between marriage and stable family units really annoys me. Setting that aside, the obvious problem is that people who are committed to each other get "married" (form stable family units), while people who aren't don't. What Prof Kearney has presumably done is to find a sample of couples similar in every important way, except that one set happened to get married and the other didn't. And of course, a bunch of people who push this topic have a barely veiled interest in getting eugenics back onto the agenda, so this introduces further difficulty.
Thanks for this response. I think it needs a bit of clarification to see what your point is.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Faithful marriage seems, to me, to be the greater sacrifice for the naturally libidinous male than it is for the naturally nest-inclined female
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
LOL, that's hilarious. The idea that men suppressed their testosterone and stayed loyal is quite ridiculous. Many men had affairs and/or saw prostitutes, and the women were trapped in their marriages.
Women were routinely abused within marriage by their husbands and their rights suppressed. Not the men's testosterone.
I’m talking about nice guys. Alpha but nice
Clearly the bastards will be bastards and the Betas of PB will be glad for anything they can get
LOL. This 'beta' shite again .I guess you see yourself as the alphaist of alpha males; a true stag amongst men?
Comments
Tories Out!
This isn’t the Supreme Court “abdicating its responsibilities” as the fox beaters put it. It is protecting the system from abuse. Abuse that would ultimately wreck the Supreme Court, among other things.
(Four justices should recuse themselves, but won’t. Two of them should be impeached!)
I’ve never voted for the party. I even voted for someone with a bin over their head at one point.
Because Over the last 10 years, the entire span of my voting life, that party who knew exactly how to rule a country well for the last hundred years has come to utterly lose the plot, and need to be placed a billion miles from the corridors of power for the time being. Maybe it won’t ever comeback from next years electoral drubbing, because the soul of that old party is just rubbish at managing UKs inevitable decline - refusing to accept that it is inevitable and very painful decline, therefore making stupid decisions disconnected from the reality of what they have no choice but to do.
We need to accept that the USA is fast turning into a failed state where nearly half the population don’t seem to care that Trump is the most corrupt individual to ever hold the Presidency.
I’m really passed caring anymore . I used to but have accepted defeat. I doubt Trump will start any wars so that’s one crumb of comfort .
The UK and the EU must prepare for the worst and need to forget about the USA in terms of help for Ukraine and will need to accept that NATOs days might be numbered or that they’ll need to find a lot more resources.
Tap out and watch some sport.
Here’s some tips
2.10 Taunton - Queens Gamble
2.25 Newbury - Certainly Red
3.00 Newbury - Captain Teague
3.35 Newbury - Passing Well
Go out and stand under a tree listening to the angry birds and experience the sunset and tge lights coming on.
This way you can still post later when you see something that definitely needs answering, or got some very thoughtful spark to share, and not banned. 🤨
Though yes I agree the European NATO states and Canada need to be prepared to fund containing Putin themselves without the support of a US led by Trump again if that occurs
I'd like to know what you think the outcome of the GE2024 election will be?
Some cases are not in front of juries (as with the New York fraud case), so you can be convicted without a jury.
So if DeSantis is to pull out, he has just a few days after Iowa in which to frame himself as a winner for 2028 (ETA or to find a billionaire with an open cheque book).
My door, window, kitchen and bathroom man just turned up with an invoice this morning, for replacement of the door gear in a uPVC door he installed in a house renovation back in 2017 or so. The door gear is the gubbins (minus the lock) inside the door that engages the locking multipoints.
He turned up looking a bit hipster-like with a growth of beard and a certain amount of hair on top.
It turns out that his daughter is doing a hairdressing module on her course at Sheffield University, and is required to demonstrate that at the end she has the skills to cut hair and shave a beard. Inevitably, dad is the chosen victim 😁.
That goes a long way to explaining (a) US economic prowess (b) the fact that so many don’t feel they benefit from it.
I don't think that application would have required the Judge to comply, however.
PB predictions 2023
1. Ukraine stalemate to continue throughout the year with little change. ✔︎
2. Inflation to remain above 5% by year end. ✘
3. Trump still to be the leading GOP POTUS candidate by year end. ✔︎
4. May local elections to be a record loss for the Tories. ✘
5. …despite which, Sunak to still be PM at the end of the year. ✔︎
6. Labour polling lead to continue in to 10% - 20% range through the year. ✔︎
7. FTSE100 at 6,500 by year end. ✘
8. Australia to win the Ashes this summer. ✘
9. France to win the RU world cup. ✘
10. England to win the Women’s Football World Cup. ✘
4/10 - Leonesque levels of prediction but a marked improvement on last year.
The answer is in the Mitrokhin Archive, among other places. And no, it’s not about spies or working for the KGB.
I think the next election the history books call a Brexit election. Because of that utterly unelectable Britain hating, anti semite ideologically immature Corbyn being the alternative government, the Tory party hadn’t received a proper kicking from Remainia for Brexit yet. So even if they weren’t so out of touch and factionally riven, the Tories were always in for a kicking once labour were remotely safe again. The Tories will be lucky to poll 30% at the election, I reckon something in the 20s.
Because the interesting bit is what Reform will actually poll.
At start of this parliament you could imagine the following election being a “let’s protect our Brexit” election, couldn’t you? It’s become so unpopular so quick, it will be laugh out loud if “don’t vote Labour, protect Brexit” appears on a newspaper front page or a Tory election leaflet. Yet just 4 years ago Torys gobbled up all Farages support to get brexit done. Yes it is done, but no, it’s not remotely delivering anything promised. So it’s easy now to imagine the Tories polling in the 20’s and reform 5%, result is 150 Tory MPs.
From the publisher's description: "In The Two-Parent Privilege, Melissa S. Kearney makes a provocative, data-driven case for marriage by showing how the institution’s decline has led to a host of economic woes—problems that have fractured American society and rendered vulnerable populations even more vulnerable. Eschewing the religious and values-based arguments that have long dominated this conversation, Kearney shows how the greatest impacts of marriage are, in fact, economic: when two adults marry, their economic and household lives improve, offering a host of benefits not only for the married adults but for their children. Studies show that these effects are today starker, and more unevenly distributed, than ever before. Kearney examines the underlying causes of the marriage decline in the US and draws lessons for how the US can reverse this trend to ensure the country’s future prosperity."
In my opinion, much of the unhappiness about the US economy is a result of the decline of marriage in the US. Which is more the fault of men than women.
(Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but am familiar with much of the earlier research on this problem. And have seen examples in my own extended family.)
There is a traditional hierarchy with steam engines, going back 200 years. Put simply, you may start as a young lad as a firelighter, become a cleaner; learn about the loco whilst cleaning it. After a few years if you do well or have the right contacts, you become a fireman. Then after another few years, you may become a driver. Each step on the ladder builds on knowledge gained in the last, along with tests.
This hierarchy has persisted onto preserved steam railways. It makes sense in a way, but also puts tremendous power in the gatekeepers who say who is a passed fireman/driver.
During WWII, my grandfather, who was a riveter by trade, volunteered to train as a welder. He was getting older, and thought that something with less physical effort was the way to go. The shipyard hard a bunch of wildcat strikes over welding. Some were about demanding retention of riveting.
The contempt for scaffolders on building sites is not taught at Eton.
That and splitting. Five minutes after you post the naming conventions up, you’d have the
- The Ffestiniog Railway
- The Ffestiniog Real Railway
- The Continuity Ffestiniog Railway
- The Original Ffestiniog Railway
- The People’s Ffestiniog Liberation Front Railway
This video illustrates the process of managing such organisations - https://youtu.be/m_MaJDK3VNE?si=cqvy2Iu5-LfuffxF
A 'strike' happened this year on the Strathspey:
https://www.strathspey-herald.co.uk/news/mass-walk-out-by-staff-and-volunteers-at-strathspey-steam-ra-330220/
And I think something similar happened on the West Somerset Railway a few years back.
One of the reasons I stopped working on a preserved railway was the fact I could not stand the manager running the place. Sometimes a 'thankyou' goes a million miles.
"After high school, DeSantis studied history at Yale University. He was captain of Yale's varsity baseball team; he played outfield, and as a senior in 2001 he had the team's best batting average at .336.[21][22][23][24] DeSantis was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity and of the St. Elmo Society, one of Yale's secret societies.[20][25][26] While attending Yale, he worked a variety of jobs, including as an electrician's assistant and a coach at a baseball camp.[13] DeSantis graduated from Yale in 2001 with a B.A., magna cum laude.[27]
After Yale, DeSantis taught history and coached for a year at Darlington School in Georgia,[28] then attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 2005 with a Juris Doctor, cum laude.[29] At Harvard, he was business manager for the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_DeSantis#Early_life_and_education
(As a Catholic, he would have faced discrimination at both Yale and Harvard. Is that one of his reasons for his pugnacity?)
They do claim a very broad curriculum.
Jessica: There is this denialism about the last election. Democrats won in 2020. Joe Biden did that by millions of votes.
Duffy: By suppressing a laptop
Jessica: OMG you think Hunter Biden’s penis pictures were going to sway the election
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1740860252768055802
https://x.com/4hundredblows/status/1741049494387445797?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Eton is where to underpiners go - *everyone* looks down on them.
https://newsitn.com/news-hour/jools-hollands-annual-hootenanny-returns-to-maidstone-studios-with-tickets-available/
They do time it and edit well though, so it looks live when you’re watching it.
https://twitter.com/elizifferblatt/status/1741079131817693326
Some sources say that they might be Russian air defence missiles that have gone astray. Possible, but as not-an-expert I wouldn't think they would strike like that. Then again, who knows with North Korean missiles...
Bit like the ITU.
(Isn't the English language fun?)
Evil and libellous people wrongly claim this shows her as the Biden family’s 15 year old babysitter, when Joe was still married to his first wife
In fact she is 23 here, as you can clearly see
My rowing club is run as a charitable *business* - there’s a CEO, appointed by the trustees. No cliques and manoeuvring in the boat bays or the pub. So restful.
Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man.
Communism is the reverse.
Without going back to indignities like scorning children as 'bastards' etc, I can't see that anything can or should be done about something that will either be self corrected and communally corrected or else not corrected at all.
Anything remotely political or comedy tends to need to go through compliance, so HIGNFY gets recorded for about two hours on Thursday, and they spend most of Friday editing it down with the lawyers!
I did once go and see Mock The Week, which was also about two hours of mostly unbroadcastable jokes from which they somehow got down to 30 minutes of television! They had enough material for several DVDs of outtakes, most of which featured a certain Mr Frankie Boyle and his total lack of filter.
Oh, and yes, I see that they have gone with fireworks again this year. How very imaginative.
I've read a good book by an old steam driver who found it took him years longer than it should to become a fireman, simple because he did not have contacts. He was lucky to get a job as a junior as a boy, but found other lads, who he felt worked less hard, found promotion quickly. He ended up an express driver, so it probably wasn't capability.
Also, if you argued with the union reps, they could find interesting ways to make you suffer.
From everything I've read, and from talking to some old guys, BR in steam days was far from meritocratic.
The problem with “meritocracy” as the cure for this is that it gives the current holders a believe in their Divine Right to be On Top. For didn’t they not rise According To The Order Of Things?
Look at the collection of pluperfect assholes running the Post Office.
Of course, this needs a boss who is able to take it on trust that you will get done what you are tasked to do, in your own way. Some bosses are very reluctant to do this, despite the evidence, and insist on micromanaging. And then people leave.
One thing I would say is that getting married and staying married is not, on the whole, some predetermined or even random matter for a particular group of people. On the whole for most people most of the time it is a matter of the settled long term will and decision in which every other option is placed aside as not to be considered. Just as looking after your child from age 0-18 (or whatever) is not considered a negotiable matter with other options to be considered.
If the modern sense of 'autonomy' is supposed to mean anything else, then in the view of many, including me, it is simply wrong and needs amending. Which of course does not mean that sometimes things will go disastrously wrong however hard people try - so there is no point in getting judgemental about it all.
Police killed Niani Finlayson seconds after responding to her 911 call, video shows
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/29/la-police-fatally-shot-niani-finlayson-body-camera
...This was not Shelton’s first fatal shooting. On 11 June 2020, the deputy killed Michael Thomas, 61, also while responding to a call for potential domestic violence. That killing was not caught on camera, but Thomas’s girlfriend later said she and Thomas had been having a verbal argument and that Thomas had tried to stop the officers from entering his home. It was weeks after George Floyd’s murder, and his family said he had been frightened police would kill him. Thomas was unarmed and Shelton shot him in the chest. He was not prosecuted...
It is a big factor in social mobility (or the lack of it) too. There is a big class divide in how stable marriages are, and the effects on children. Bad economic times are tough on relationships.
Incidentally I would recommend this history of marriage (from a rather American perspective). Marriage has always been about economics, or at least until recently was:
Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage https://amzn.eu/d/bLxAqOJ
The Rise And Decline of Nations – Economic, Growth, Stagflation, And Social Rigidities
It might be in our nature to put our children above others but it ossifies society.
The pay-off used to be the female was generally submissive and did all the chores, in return the man suppressed his testosterone and stayed loyal. When that equation was upended by female emancipation (and good for them: I have two daughters) then marriage was terminally destabilised as an institution
I’m not sure how you fix that
If someone tried to boss me now I’d probably hit them. No joke
I think it should be called Young's paradox. That from Michael you always seem to get Toby.
If anything has destabilised marriage it is that women have resources of their own now, and don't have to put up with feckless men playing away.
Nowadays there are fewer mass employers, even in localised areas, and a massively wider range of jobs. If our son decided to go into programming or chip design, we might be able to help him on the ladder. We have friends in other technical areas that we *might* be able to provide help with, but if he wants to go into the arts, or large areas of science, or medicine, or the law, then we've got few, if any, useful contacts.
It does meaning cutting out the more interesting social establishment in port cities (for a start), though.
Also a very large community of those who, having had a matrimonial disaster, get married again.
For all sorts of edgy cultural reasons almost no attention is paid in the arts and popular culture to these realities. This I suppose is because from outside that circle of family life it is intensely boring as a spectacle. (Boris's private life seems much more fascinating that Starmer's or whoever). Long may it remain so.
(BTW it is obvious that with the people under a certain age there is no possibility of proof, because future time needs to pass. But that lacuna cuts both ways.)
My wife worked throughout our marriage, and we share 'the chores', FWIW.
Women were routinely abused within marriage by their husbands and their rights suppressed. Not the men's testosterone.
1 lumen = 12.5 candles
Clearly the bastards will be bastards and the Betas of PB will be glad for anything they can get