Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Having screwed HS2 up they now have a rather big problem - just putting the HS2 trains on the WCML will reduce capacity on the line to the extent that the hourly number of seats from Manchester to be reduced by 160.
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
So we've spent how many billions to reduce capacity ?
The important bit of “capacity”, the number of paths between London and Birmingham, will increase dramatically.
The whole thing is still a huge mess though, there really needs to be a JFDI culture brought into major infrastructure projects - this line should really be open by now, all of it to Leeds and Liverpool.
Just stunningly stupid mess that Sunak has created.
All so he could stand at conference and say he was the 'change candidate' ripping up 30 years of tory thinking. A strategy which lasted barely a couple of weeks.
That conference, and doubling down on Rwanda, have been two ridiculous errors on Sunak’s part. His only chance at salvaging something from the GE was to portray himself as a well-meaning, managerial, steadying-the-ship sort of leader. Instead he decided he’d go down the route of craziness and short-termism.
He is being appalling advised and he seems to just do whatever looney tunes idea the spads come up with next.
Possibly a bit like Trump only being able to get useless lawyers these days.
You probably have to be a very special sort of Spad to be available to give political advice to the government right now.
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Cheers for that, I’ll give it a watch.
Other good stuff on there for newbies, IMHO: Slow Horses - as discussed on here before. It gets better and better. For All Mankind - I’m not particularly a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed this, but the latest series isn’t so good. The alternative history shtick is perhaps feeling its age. Ted Lasso - superb, feel good, makes my eyes leak far too often. Probably a bit woke for some but worth the admission price for the Amazonian Hannah Waddingham alone. Shrinking - Harrison Ford steals every scene in this comedy about dysfunctional therapists. Again, may be too woke for some but for a bleeding heart liberal like me it’s great.
And Greyhound, the Tom Hanks Atlantic convoy movie.
"Cameron coalition government ‘knew Post Office chiefs covered up computer scandal’ ‘Project Sparrow’ was formed to remove the forensic accountants who uncovered the scandal
Newly released documents show that Post Office chiefs secretly ditched forensic accountants who found problems in the Horizon IT system – with the full knowledge of David Cameron’s coalition government."
It would kinda be the icing on the shit sandwich if, Sunak having brought him back to show some gravitas to his team, Cameron were to have to resign from Government again.....
No, I don't think the Post Office Horizon scandal fells Dave (there is a safety in numbers) or questions why Rishi might bring him back into Government.
One of Labour's most effective attacks on the government is campaigning against Tory sleaze and cronyism. It certainly hits home with Mone and related PPE profiteering, but Greensill coming back as an issue too.
Its quite a safe attack by Labour too as can get little return fire.
Teesside Freeport in the mix too?
Too far outside the M25 for the national media, but might well be significant in the NE.
The PO scandal was largely outside the M25.
ITV drama on Teesside Freeport anyone?
It's a good old fashioned local Labour corruption scandal from the1970s. Only this time the grifters badged themselves as Tories.
Well, Lib Dems mainly. At the time of Operation Sparrow Jo Swinson had taken over from Ed Davey and Vince Cable was her boss as business secretary. I thought that they were supposed to be the good guys?
They, like others, were lied to by the Post Office.
I'd like to see evidence about what the Senior Civil Servant who sat on the Operation Sparrow Committee relayed back to ministers.
Callard, and Sibbick before him, certainly saw their jobs as keeping a handle on all the big issues facing the postal and counters businesses. And government influence can be wielded quite effectively through official channels without any direct political involvement or even any direct instruction.
I am now listening to an AI movie soundtrack, and... its pretty good
It really is all over. Humanity. We are a bunch of overweight apes that made some OK things but basically soiled the world and it's time to say goodbye
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
Ex PB-er @SeanT was right about that, as about everything else
..For there will be another Spanish flu pandemic one day. The 1918 outbreak occurred because the viral strain acquired the ability to infect humans and then to become transmissible among humans. Other strains have that potential too. Global warming may empower the strongest ones still further. The world of 2018 is infinitely more interconnected than that of 1918. ..
Fair play, that's an excellent and, yes, prescient article by Martin Kettle
Whatever happened to him? He used to be one of the few go-to writers on the Guardian, with unexpected stuff like that. Now he just rehashes tedious anti-Tory talking points
Indeed, this can be said of several Guardian writers.Toynbee has completely lost it (age?). Owen Jones is wholly lost in la-la-Corbynland. Marina Hyde used to be great, now hmmm
The only Guardian writer I now turn to with anticipation is Jay Rayner, on restaurants. And sometimes that cricket dude with the weird name
Quite a lot of people who start well (eg Simon Jenkins, Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Peter Oborne), finish up writing dreck.
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Having screwed HS2 up they now have a rather big problem - just putting the HS2 trains on the WCML will reduce capacity on the line to the extent that the hourly number of seats from Manchester to be reduced by 160.
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
So we've spent how many billions to reduce capacity ?
The important bit of “capacity”, the number of paths between London and Birmingham, will increase dramatically.
The whole thing is still a huge mess though, there really needs to be a JFDI culture brought into major infrastructure projects - this line should really be open by now, all of it to Leeds and Liverpool.
The purpose of major infrastructure projects is to enrich consultants and lawyers.
Where, when, how or even if the infrastructure is actually built is an irrelevance except in its ability to generate even more work for the consultants and lawyers.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
This is a fair point, and I was making it way back in the 20-whatevers, when Obama was busily droning people al over the shop, and cracking jokes about it at White House dinners
In the end non-western actors - I predicted - will start taking out THEIR enemies on foreign soil, eg on the territory of western nations. And we won't like it, but we won't have much of a moral argument
Another good point, with which I agreed, and agree.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
Russia has always practised assassinations on foreign territory. It's always been a hyper-aggressive power.
I just cannot understand how the Tories spent five years watching Labour self-destruct and decided to do the same.
Because it’s not a single entity, but a collection of people each with their own firmly held view as to what needs to be done, all mutually conflicting.
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
Ex PB-er @SeanT was right about that, as about everything else
..For there will be another Spanish flu pandemic one day. The 1918 outbreak occurred because the viral strain acquired the ability to infect humans and then to become transmissible among humans. Other strains have that potential too. Global warming may empower the strongest ones still further. The world of 2018 is infinitely more interconnected than that of 1918. ..
Fair play, that's an excellent and, yes, prescient article by Martin Kettle
Whatever happened to him? He used to be one of the few go-to writers on the Guardian, with unexpected stuff like that. Now he just rehashes tedious anti-Tory talking points
Indeed, this can be said of several Guardian writers.Toynbee has completely lost it (age?). Owen Jones is wholly lost in la-la-Corbynland. Marina Hyde used to be great, now hmmm
The only Guardian writer I now turn to with anticipation is Jay Rayner, on restaurants. And sometimes that cricket dude with the weird name
We have similar tastes - except I don't think I've ever read an entire article by Jones, and Toynbee was always rubbish.
I just cannot understand how the Tories spent five years watching Labour self-destruct and decided to do the same.
Because it’s not a single entity, but a collection of people each with their own firmly held view as to what needs to be done, all mutually conflicting.
Big political mistakes almost always seem to be unforced errors.
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Cheers for that, I’ll give it a watch.
Other good stuff on there for newbies, IMHO: Slow Horses - as discussed on here before. It gets better and better. For All Mankind - I’m not particularly a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed this, but the latest series isn’t so good. The alternative history shtick is perhaps feeling its age. Ted Lasso - superb, feel good, makes my eyes leak far too often. Probably a bit woke for some but worth the admission price for the Amazonian Hannah Waddingham alone. Shrinking - Harrison Ford steals every scene in this comedy about dysfunctional therapists. Again, may be too woke for some but for a bleeding heart liberal like me it’s great.
And Greyhound, the Tom Hanks Atlantic convoy movie.
Greyhound was ok, though I feel some of the action was in Hollywood far fetched territory. Did a U boat really sail between two escort vessels so close to one another that they couldn’t fire on the sub without hitting each other?
USN all-black uniforms looked weirdly fascistic. Perhaps I’ve been conditioned by seeing them represented mostly in the Pacific theatre.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
I blame the voters who demanded lockdowns as they fled to remote parts of the UK because they were so gaylord poncey boots about Covid.
There certainly was that.
People slating lockdowns now do seem to blame everything on them, as if they were inflicted on us by a capricious and controlling government for no reason.
As if ignoring a novel pandemic virus with high morbidity and mortality and carrying on as normal was a possibility. It wasn't.
As we seem to be governed by ITV series now it will be interesting to see how the new drama "Breathtaking" works.
I am not convinced that people want covid dramas though. Everyone wants to forget, including my colleagues with PTSD over the whole thing. Mrs Foxy had a hard time on ICU, feeling way out of her depth after redeployment with young people dying on ventilators. It will haunt her a long time.
Ex PB-er @SeanT was right about that, as about everything else
..For there will be another Spanish flu pandemic one day. The 1918 outbreak occurred because the viral strain acquired the ability to infect humans and then to become transmissible among humans. Other strains have that potential too. Global warming may empower the strongest ones still further. The world of 2018 is infinitely more interconnected than that of 1918. ..
Fair play, that's an excellent and, yes, prescient article by Martin Kettle
Whatever happened to him? He used to be one of the few go-to writers on the Guardian, with unexpected stuff like that. Now he just rehashes tedious anti-Tory talking points
Indeed, this can be said of several Guardian writers.Toynbee has completely lost it (age?). Owen Jones is wholly lost in la-la-Corbynland. Marina Hyde used to be great, now hmmm
The only Guardian writer I now turn to with anticipation is Jay Rayner, on restaurants. And sometimes that cricket dude with the weird name
We have similar tastes - except I don't think I've ever read an entire article by Jones, and Toynbee was always rubbish.
Toynbee lost it when she burnt her bridges with Labour by being one of the SDP founders, and then quickly burnt her bridges with the LibDems by sticking with Owen until the very end. Journalism was the only way out.
I just cannot understand how the Tories spent five years watching Labour self-destruct and decided to do the same.
Because it’s not a single entity, but a collection of people each with their own firmly held view as to what needs to be done, all mutually conflicting.
It’s the political version of Botham deliberately running out Boycott to up the run rate. Except it’s not, it’s more akin to Phil Tufnell deliberately running out Andy Caddick in the second innings of a 90s ashes test.
The polls are widening and that is only going to get worse. I think the tories will panic to save what is left of the Parliamentary group. Recession, summer boats, brexit border chaos,, medicine shortages, interest rates will remain high, ever more infighting on the right and reform in the ascendant > there is simply less and less to wait for. They can wait, but it would be the wrong move. It is time to cut losses now.
I agree.
think of a re-election campaign as nesting. it has to align with fair news cycle - you can’t campaign on we have turned a corner as you enter recession, nor campaign on making progress on boat crossing in the middle of a boat crossing surge. Recession, summer boats are just some of the bad news cycles plumbed in to splurge out from media’s sewage pipe and all over Rishi and his government throughout summer and Autumn, starting in May with local election hammering, ongoing mortgage crisis of key voters deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals, and then comes the interim covid report publication!
We have to consider the backdrop to the campaign in Q3 and 4. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in serious trouble.
Agreed. I had for a long time thought that 24rd October was a dead cert, but am now definitely leaning towards May 2nd.
A combination of economic stagnation, the local elections, countless stories of small boat crossings in summer, and yes the number of people having to remortgage at much higher rates, which could be a couple of million voters.
The date I really don’t understand is November, which is a crap month to be campaigning in the dark, cold, and wet.
November is favourite because George Osborne said he'd been told the general election would be held on 14th November, and because George Osborne has never been involved in spin or the dark arts, we can believe him.
There is also a theory which Boris is said to hold (and which is why I reckon they will go for Januaary) that although bad weather disrupts campaigning, this favours the Conservative Party by neutralising the Opposition's ground war advantage and also because Tory voters are more likely to turn out to vote in bad weather.
Tory voters were more likely to turn out in bad weather, when the Tory party was popular.
I just cannot understand how the Tories spent five years watching Labour self-destruct and decided to do the same.
They're not really. The conventional political wisdom is the wrong way round. It is not that split parties are unpopular, as the pundits have it, but that unpopular parties split.
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Cheers for that, I’ll give it a watch.
Other good stuff on there for newbies, IMHO: Slow Horses - as discussed on here before. It gets better and better. For All Mankind - I’m not particularly a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed this, but the latest series isn’t so good. The alternative history shtick is perhaps feeling its age. Ted Lasso - superb, feel good, makes my eyes leak far too often. Probably a bit woke for some but worth the admission price for the Amazonian Hannah Waddingham alone. Shrinking - Harrison Ford steals every scene in this comedy about dysfunctional therapists. Again, may be too woke for some but for a bleeding heart liberal like me it’s great.
And Greyhound, the Tom Hanks Atlantic convoy movie.
Greyhound was ok, though I feel some of the action was in Hollywood far fetched territory. Did a U boat really sail between two escort vessels so close to one another that they couldn’t fire on the sub without hitting each other?
Who knows; life is often more unlikely than fiction. But the overall storyline and atmosphere was realistic, it didn’t fall into the usual Hollywood simplistic plot line where everything comes out all right for the goodies. The characterisation is a bit thin, and Stephen Graham occasionally lets his fake American accent slip, but he’s always good value, as is Hanks. It gets criticised mostly for being a “dad movie”, but then that’s our demographic, right?
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
Music is already entirely derivative and at the top end (in the pop world) is all about the performance, the person and their looks / back story while at the bottom end it’s purely algorithmic. Like art, pretty much. AI accelerates this trend. Synths and sampling had a similar effect in the 70s.
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
Will AI be cutting its own throat though? You can’t have multi million viewed Taylor Swift AI generated porn without Taylor Swift.
I just cannot understand how the Tories spent five years watching Labour self-destruct and decided to do the same.
Because it’s not a single entity, but a collection of people each with their own firmly held view as to what needs to be done, all mutually conflicting.
It’s the political version of Botham deliberately running out Boycott to up the run rate. Except it’s not, it’s more akin to Phil Tufnell deliberately running out Andy Caddick in the second innings of a 90s ashes test.
An action which has provided Botham with an anecdote:
"[Geoff Mulgan] cites it as an example of where science can be “opaque and secretive”, operating in silos that can skew the political decision-making process. It happened during Covid, he says, when lockdowns were driven by the opinions of experts in viruses and physical health with little or no input from experts on the indirect effects of removing liberties.
“The whole system of advice and decision making was unbalanced,” he says. “There was almost no voice for taking account of mental health. There was almost no account taken of the care system which has much less voice and status in Whitehall than the hospitals."
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Cheers for that, I’ll give it a watch.
Other good stuff on there for newbies, IMHO: Slow Horses - as discussed on here before. It gets better and better. For All Mankind - I’m not particularly a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed this, but the latest series isn’t so good. The alternative history shtick is perhaps feeling its age. Ted Lasso - superb, feel good, makes my eyes leak far too often. Probably a bit woke for some but worth the admission price for the Amazonian Hannah Waddingham alone. Shrinking - Harrison Ford steals every scene in this comedy about dysfunctional therapists. Again, may be too woke for some but for a bleeding heart liberal like me it’s great.
And Greyhound, the Tom Hanks Atlantic convoy movie.
Greyhound was ok, though I feel some of the action was in Hollywood far fetched territory. Did a U boat really sail between two escort vessels so close to one another that they couldn’t fire on the sub without hitting each other?
USN all-black uniforms looked weirdly fascistic. Perhaps I’ve been conditioned by seeing them represented mostly in the Pacific theatre.
I've not seen Greyhound but it was the case that U-boats would sail into the actual convoys. Wolf pack versus convoy battles could also run over several days. Tactics and weaponry on both sides were constantly evolving. Now Apple has the film distribution rights, I guess there will not be a DVD release for us non-subscribers.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
Everyone?
That is patently not true as several have posted here that they had a 'good' pandemic only a few days ago. I know oxymoron and all that.
I feel really sorry for those who were single and locked away in flats without gardens. It must have been really tough, but because you were amongst most who had a tough time you should exaggerate and make it everyone.
Personally there was no downside for me. I have a large house with a large garden and went from a 2 person household to a 5 person household as children and girlfriend of one of my children came to live with us. Lots of time in the garden, bbqs, etc.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
Others have posted here similar stories.
Might not be fair, but saying 'Everyone' is far from true.
I just cannot understand how the Tories spent five years watching Labour self-destruct and decided to do the same.
Because it’s not a single entity, but a collection of people each with their own firmly held view as to what needs to be done, all mutually conflicting.
It’s the political version of Botham deliberately running out Boycott to up the run rate. Except it’s not, it’s more akin to Phil Tufnell deliberately running out Andy Caddick in the second innings of a 90s ashes test.
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Cheers for that, I’ll give it a watch.
Other good stuff on there for newbies, IMHO: Slow Horses - as discussed on here before. It gets better and better. For All Mankind - I’m not particularly a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed this, but the latest series isn’t so good. The alternative history shtick is perhaps feeling its age. Ted Lasso - superb, feel good, makes my eyes leak far too often. Probably a bit woke for some but worth the admission price for the Amazonian Hannah Waddingham alone. Shrinking - Harrison Ford steals every scene in this comedy about dysfunctional therapists. Again, may be too woke for some but for a bleeding heart liberal like me it’s great.
And Greyhound, the Tom Hanks Atlantic convoy movie.
Greyhound was ok, though I feel some of the action was in Hollywood far fetched territory. Did a U boat really sail between two escort vessels so close to one another that they couldn’t fire on the sub without hitting each other?
Who knows; life is often more unlikely than fiction. But the overall storyline and atmosphere was realistic, it didn’t fall into the usual Hollywood simplistic plot line where everything comes out all right for the goodies. The characterisation is a bit thin, and Stephen Graham occasionally lets his fake American accent slip, but he’s always good value, as is Hanks. It gets criticised mostly for being a “dad movie”, but then that’s our demographic, right?
Shame that afaik Hanks hasn’t expressed an interest in politics because he now seems to specialise in these trusted father of the nation roles, and as far as I can tell is a decent cove.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
Everyone?
That is patently not true as several have posted here that they had a 'good' pandemic only a few days ago. I know oxymoron and all that.
I feel really sorry for those who were single and locked away in flats without gardens. It must have been really tough, but because you were amongst most who had a tough time you should exaggerate and make it everyone.
Personally there was no downside for me. I have a large house with a large garden and went from a 2 person household to a 5 person household as children and girlfriend of one of my children came to live with us. Lots of time in the garden, bbqs, etc.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
Others have posted here similar stories.
Might not be fair, but saying 'Everyone' is far from true.
One thing outspoken people on the right and left are good at under a FPTP system is shifting the Overton window.
Because it’s tribal, if one tribe goes far in one direction they will alienate some if their support but bring a large chunk of the rest on a journey with them. Trump has very successfully done that in the US. Corbyn arguably did so for a couple of years before going off the boil. Boris and others very successfully shifted the window on Brexit over a number of years. I saw the phenomenon up close with several Labour supporting friends around the time of the Iraq war too.
I fear - and predict - that come autumn enough voices in the Tory right and the press will be extolling the virtues of Trump that you’ll see about 20-30% of UK opinion shifting to accept him as being on their side. It’ll start out as a “they’re all as bad as each other” move on to “they’re both flawed but at least Trump doesn’t hate Britain” and end up with close to full throated support.
I just cannot understand how the Tories spent five years watching Labour self-destruct and decided to do the same.
Because it’s not a single entity, but a collection of people each with their own firmly held view as to what needs to be done, all mutually conflicting.
It’s the political version of Botham deliberately running out Boycott to up the run rate. Except it’s not, it’s more akin to Phil Tufnell deliberately running out Andy Caddick in the second innings of a 90s ashes test.
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Cheers for that, I’ll give it a watch.
Other good stuff on there for newbies, IMHO: Slow Horses - as discussed on here before. It gets better and better. For All Mankind - I’m not particularly a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed this, but the latest series isn’t so good. The alternative history shtick is perhaps feeling its age. Ted Lasso - superb, feel good, makes my eyes leak far too often. Probably a bit woke for some but worth the admission price for the Amazonian Hannah Waddingham alone. Shrinking - Harrison Ford steals every scene in this comedy about dysfunctional therapists. Again, may be too woke for some but for a bleeding heart liberal like me it’s great.
And Greyhound, the Tom Hanks Atlantic convoy movie.
Greyhound was ok, though I feel some of the action was in Hollywood far fetched territory. Did a U boat really sail between two escort vessels so close to one another that they couldn’t fire on the sub without hitting each other?
USN all-black uniforms looked weirdly fascistic. Perhaps I’ve been conditioned by seeing them represented mostly in the Pacific theatre.
I've not seen Greyhound but it was the case that U-boats would sail into the actual convoys. Wolf pack versus convoy battles could also run over several days. Tactics and weaponry on both sides were constantly evolving. Now Apple has the film distribution rights, I guess there will not be a DVD release for us non-subscribers.
Hanks - who as well as starring had a directorial role - is usually pretty thorough with military accuracy.
One thing outspoken people on the right and left are good at under a FPTP system is shifting the Overton window.
Because it’s tribal, if one tribe goes far in one direction they will alienate some if their support but bring a large chunk of the rest on a journey with them. Trump has very successfully done that in the US. Corbyn arguably did so for a couple of years before going off the boil. Boris and others very successfully shifted the window on Brexit over a number of years. I saw the phenomenon up close with several Labour supporting friends around the time of the Iraq war too.
I fear - and predict - that come autumn enough voices in the Tory right and the press will be extolling the virtues of Trump that you’ll see about 20-30% of UK opinion shifting to accept him as being on their side. It’ll start out as a “they’re all as bad as each other” move on to “they’re both flawed but at least Trump doesn’t hate Britain” and end up with close to full throated support.
If Trump wins before our GE is held, and all hell breaks loose in the US, in those circumstances the Tory Party could be finished.
I just cannot understand how the Tories spent five years watching Labour self-destruct and decided to do the same.
It's what happens as governments die.
At the start, in 1997 or 2010, say, parties are well -disciplined. But also, they have an agenda to keep themselves busy, and the problems facing the nation are congenial ones. In 1997, the problem was how skinny and stingy the state was, the solutions were on the left. In 2010, the problems needed some variant of Conservative medicine.
By the end of the term, the opposite is true. The problems facing the county now are not going to be solved by spending less on public services. That creates irritation and frustration ("Why can't we just cut like Maggie did? What do you mean, all the palatable cuts have been done?").
And if governing isn't satisfying any more, opposition doesn't look like the impotence it is. It becomes an opportunity to do the fun bits of politics- dreaming dreams and scheming schemes and not having to worry if they work in boring old reality.
It's fun, but self indulgence. What's unusual about this government is the extent that they're acting like an opposition before they become one. I wonder if that's a consequence of the 2019 reset. A bit like turning the milometer back on a car, it might look like a refresh, but it doesn't change the state of the actual vehicle.
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
The trouble is, for every Maria Callas, you will get a million permutations on The Black Eyed Peas singing "I gotta feeling".
Same goes with movies. I saw a suggestion a while ago that movie studios are gonna patent troll every possible permutation of stories with millions of AI written scripts. Imagine the rate at which a Disney AI can crank out scripts. Probably in the range of 100k-1m scripts a year with some light touch human editing. It will be impossible to create anything new, because it will be too similar to something already copyrighted.
And then imagine AI has the capacity to actually make the finished product. We're a long way off in film, but in music, the tech exists to do this in the next couple of years.
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
Actual artists discovered this a few years ago, that Spotify doesn’t pay what CDs used to, and that it’s possible to publish music without a record label, albeit still difficult to get it on radio.
The only real way to now make money as a musician, is live performances. But thanks to the new technology, you often have a worldwide audience that will pay for tickets.
Funny story, top of the iTunes chart in the US right now is a rap song by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. Daily and even hourly charts, allow people with an online following to get music to #1 without any record label involvement. https://kworb.net/charts/itunes/us.html https://youtube.com/watch?v=5kGpohEpuTE
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
Will AI be cutting its own throat though? You can’t have multi million viewed Taylor Swift AI generated porn without Taylor Swift.
Similar speculation has been around for at least three decades.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
Everyone?
That is patently not true as several have posted here that they had a 'good' pandemic only a few days ago. I know oxymoron and all that.
I feel really sorry for those who were single and locked away in flats without gardens. It must have been really tough, but because you were amongst most who had a tough time you should exaggerate and make it everyone.
Personally there was no downside for me. I have a large house with a large garden and went from a 2 person household to a 5 person household as children and girlfriend of one of my children came to live with us. Lots of time in the garden, bbqs, etc.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
Others have posted here similar stories.
Might not be fair, but saying 'Everyone' is far from true.
Agreed. Personally I really enjoyed the lockdown period because lots of things that I enjoy (including chatting here) were easy to do and lots of things I don't enjoy (like commuting to work or endless in-person committee meetings) were no longer expected. I don't talk about it much as I appreciate that it was horrible for most people.
What it has done is change my attitude to work, as DavidL suggests. I've always been a workaholic - I'm 74 next month but still have a nearly full-time job, plus a thriving translation business, plus being on the council executive, plus being chair of a CLP. But I've cut down to 4 days/week in my job and intend to retire by the end of this year. I've enough income to see me out, I don't care if I can't afford to buy a house, fly to Bali or get a yacht, and enjoying the next N years indulging myself and those around me is increasingly appealing. Lockdown definitely made me realise all that.
That said, it's hard to get out of "one more achievement" mode. I'm not sure I'll ever want to do NOTHING.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
I enjoyed all the lockdowns. The roads were empty, I had clandestine trips to France which were great larks and I put a new roof on the barn.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
Everyone?
That is patently not true as several have posted here that they had a 'good' pandemic only a few days ago. I know oxymoron and all that.
I feel really sorry for those who were single and locked away in flats without gardens. It must have been really tough, but because you were amongst most who had a tough time you should exaggerate and make it everyone.
Personally there was no downside for me. I have a large house with a large garden and went from a 2 person household to a 5 person household as children and girlfriend of one of my children came to live with us. Lots of time in the garden, bbqs, etc.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
Others have posted here similar stories.
Might not be fair, but saying 'Everyone' is far from true.
Its all relative.
Few people would have had a better experience than they would otherwise but some would have had only minor disadvantages compared with others.
The only positives I can think of were the much lower road traffic in spring and summer 2020 and the encouragement it gave for walking and exploring the local area.
But like all things that break routines and patterns it might have given people the opportunity to do new things, improve their skillset or get their finances in order.
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
The trouble is, for every Maria Callas, you will get a million permutations on The Black Eyed Peas singing "I gotta feeling".
Same goes with movies. I saw a suggestion a while ago that movie studios are gonna patent troll every possible permutation of stories with millions of AI written scripts. Imagine the rate at which a Disney AI can crank out scripts. Probably in the range of 100k-1m scripts a year with some light touch human editing. It will be impossible to create anything new, because it will be too similar to something already copyrighted.
And then imagine AI has the capacity to actually make the finished product. We're a long way off in film, but in music, the tech exists to do this in the next couple of years.
That AI can churn out some pop trash isn’t impressive. As someone says above, chart music is mostly formulaic already. Whether AI can produce something considered to be up there with the historical greats is another matter.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
I am not suggesting for one moment there isn't a clear and imminent danger from Russia, or even China. There may well be a necessity to mobilise the population to put the nation on a war footing.
My point directly addressed Johnson's fork-tongued claim that he was prepared to do his patriotic duty, laying his life down for freedom and democracy, comfortable in the knowledge that he will not be called on to do any such thing. Almost back to back with this faux- patriot bollocks, Johnson flies the flag for Putin shill Donald Trump.
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Cheers for that, I’ll give it a watch.
Other good stuff on there for newbies, IMHO: Slow Horses - as discussed on here before. It gets better and better. For All Mankind - I’m not particularly a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed this, but the latest series isn’t so good. The alternative history shtick is perhaps feeling its age. Ted Lasso - superb, feel good, makes my eyes leak far too often. Probably a bit woke for some but worth the admission price for the Amazonian Hannah Waddingham alone. Shrinking - Harrison Ford steals every scene in this comedy about dysfunctional therapists. Again, may be too woke for some but for a bleeding heart liberal like me it’s great.
And Greyhound, the Tom Hanks Atlantic convoy movie.
Greyhound was ok, though I feel some of the action was in Hollywood far fetched territory. Did a U boat really sail between two escort vessels so close to one another that they couldn’t fire on the sub without hitting each other?
USN all-black uniforms looked weirdly fascistic. Perhaps I’ve been conditioned by seeing them represented mostly in the Pacific theatre.
I've not seen Greyhound but it was the case that U-boats would sail into the actual convoys. Wolf pack versus convoy battles could also run over several days. Tactics and weaponry on both sides were constantly evolving. Now Apple has the film distribution rights, I guess there will not be a DVD release for us non-subscribers.
I’d completely forgotten that the book was based on a novel by C.S. Forrester, so I must have read it a hundred years ago. Both are set right at the beginning of US involvement in the Battle of the Atlantic so technology and tactics would have been in their early days.
One false note I thought was an anonymous U boat commander constantly broadcasting for you the war will shortly be over type messages. May have happened, may have not, who knows?
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
The trouble is, for every Maria Callas, you will get a million permutations on The Black Eyed Peas singing "I gotta feeling".
Same goes with movies. I saw a suggestion a while ago that movie studios are gonna patent troll every possible permutation of stories with millions of AI written scripts. Imagine the rate at which a Disney AI can crank out scripts. Probably in the range of 100k-1m scripts a year with some light touch human editing. It will be impossible to create anything new, because it will be too similar to something already copyrighted.
And then imagine AI has the capacity to actually make the finished product. We're a long way off in film, but in music, the tech exists to do this in the next couple of years.
That AI can churn out some pop trash isn’t impressive. As someone says above, chart music is mostly formulaic already. Whether AI can produce something considered to be up there with the historical greats is another matter.
My point is (and was):
How will you be able to find it?
If an AI can crank out a million albums in the time it takes one good artist to put out one good album, the signal to noise ratio makes it almost impossible to find. Especially if the studios and PR machine has a vested interest in getting people to listen to the auto-generated stuff.
And even if you can find it... It's a million monkeys on a million typewriters, but only one of those albums needs to be any good before 'real' music has a serious problem.
Oh FFS, no first class seats? What the actual fucking fuck? Are we in the USSR? Further proof Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak are lefties.
First-class seats could be scrapped on Britain’s new High Speed 2 train line as officials look for ways to avoid a drop in passenger capacity on the troubled rail link after Rishi Sunak tore up much of the planned route.
The UK prime minister in October cut the northern leg of HS2 from Birmingham in the Midlands to Manchester to rein in spiralling costs on what has been the most expensive infrastructure scheme in Europe.
A new high-speed rail line will now only be built from London to Birmingham, with HS2’s custom-built trains shifting on to existing tracks the rest of the way to the north of England.
Sunak’s revised plans mean passenger capacity will drop because the HS2 trains are smaller than the existing stock of trains that currently use the West Coast Mainline from Birmingham to Manchester.
An internal government document seen by the Financial Times said capacity would drop from 1,690 to 1,530 seats per hour between London and Manchester, undermining the original aim of HS2, which was to hugely increase capacity on the railway system between the north and south...
...One idea under discussion is removing all first-class seats from the new trains, which would return the seat capacity on the line closer to previous levels, they said.
“They are serious about ripping out the first class, it’s another nail in the coffin of this being some kind of superior rail service but it’s probably less embarrassing than ending up with lower capacity,” said one senior rail industry figure.
Having screwed HS2 up they now have a rather big problem - just putting the HS2 trains on the WCML will reduce capacity on the line to the extent that the hourly number of seats from Manchester to be reduced by 160.
This gives them another 80 seats so you can see how much the Tory party have screwed up by messing round with HS2.
So we've spent how many billions to reduce capacity ?
The important bit of “capacity”, the number of paths between London and Birmingham, will increase dramatically.
The whole thing is still a huge mess though, there really needs to be a JFDI culture brought into major infrastructure projects - this line should really be open by now, all of it to Leeds and Liverpool.
The purpose of major infrastructure projects is to enrich consultants and lawyers.
Where, when, how or even if the infrastructure is actually built is an irrelevance except in its ability to generate even more work for the consultants and lawyers.
Sadly that does seem to be the case.
It’s incredibly frustrating, as someone with experience of other countries where stuff just gets done.
My old anecdote is the comparison between Dubai Airport’s Terminal 3 and Heathrow’s Terminal 5. Roughly similar project scope, a bunch of new buildings on an existing airfield, with new access roads to the buildings. Announced at roughly the same time, Dubai had their new terminal open before Heathrow’s planning inquiry had concluded.
NIMBYism is actively holding the country back, and as a result nothing gets done and the quality of life falls. If I were writing a law, I’d make compulsory purchase of land be set at 200% of fair market value, but with much less right of appeal. If Parliement passes a law that says Project X will be built, then the work starts the following week on buying up everything in the way of it. Even paying double, it will be miles cheaper than the project enduring years of delays because someone won’t sell up, or an activist group found some rare newt in a lake close by.
If anyone tried out Apple TV to get Masters of the Air, I recommend the Israeli series 'Tehran' while you're waiting for the next episode. An Emmy winner for 'best drama series', deservedly so.
Cheers for that, I’ll give it a watch.
Other good stuff on there for newbies, IMHO: Slow Horses - as discussed on here before. It gets better and better. For All Mankind - I’m not particularly a sci-fi fan but I enjoyed this, but the latest series isn’t so good. The alternative history shtick is perhaps feeling its age. Ted Lasso - superb, feel good, makes my eyes leak far too often. Probably a bit woke for some but worth the admission price for the Amazonian Hannah Waddingham alone. Shrinking - Harrison Ford steals every scene in this comedy about dysfunctional therapists. Again, may be too woke for some but for a bleeding heart liberal like me it’s great.
And Greyhound, the Tom Hanks Atlantic convoy movie.
Greyhound was ok, though I feel some of the action was in Hollywood far fetched territory. Did a U boat really sail between two escort vessels so close to one another that they couldn’t fire on the sub without hitting each other?
USN all-black uniforms looked weirdly fascistic. Perhaps I’ve been conditioned by seeing them represented mostly in the Pacific theatre.
I've not seen Greyhound but it was the case that U-boats would sail into the actual convoys. Wolf pack versus convoy battles could also run over several days. Tactics and weaponry on both sides were constantly evolving. Now Apple has the film distribution rights, I guess there will not be a DVD release for us non-subscribers.
I’d completely forgotten that the book was based on a novel by C.S. Forrester, so I must have read it a hundred years ago. Both are set right at the beginning of US involvement in the Battle of the Atlantic so technology and tactics would have been in their early days.
One false note I thought was an anonymous U boat commander constantly broadcasting for you the war will shortly be over type messages. May have happened, may have not, who knows?
It is actually in the book ('The Good Shepherd') just not quite as described. There, the captain of one of the corvettes said he didn't want to discuss his fuel situation over the radio as a U-boat was listening in and making constant rude remarks.
I thought it was a very typical adaptation of Forster, in that it was an action movie that was unable to get the core of the novel. But, since the core of his novels are understanding the thoughts and feelings of a character, particularly 'a man alone,' it's nearly impossible to film them as he wrote them.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
Everyone?
That is patently not true as several have posted here that they had a 'good' pandemic only a few days ago. I know oxymoron and all that.
I feel really sorry for those who were single and locked away in flats without gardens. It must have been really tough, but because you were amongst most who had a tough time you should exaggerate and make it everyone.
Personally there was no downside for me. I have a large house with a large garden and went from a 2 person household to a 5 person household as children and girlfriend of one of my children came to live with us. Lots of time in the garden, bbqs, etc.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
Others have posted here similar stories.
Might not be fair, but saying 'Everyone' is far from true.
Agreed. Personally I really enjoyed the lockdown period because lots of things that I enjoy (including chatting here) were easy to do and lots of things I don't enjoy (like commuting to work or endless in-person committee meetings) were no longer expected. I don't talk about it much as I appreciate that it was horrible for most people.
What it has done is change my attitude to work, as DavidL suggests. I've always been a workaholic - I'm 74 next month but still have a nearly full-time job, plus a thriving translation business, plus being on the council executive, plus being chair of a CLP. But I've cut down to 4 days/week in my job and intend to retire by the end of this year. I've enough income to see me out, I don't care if I can't afford to buy a house, fly to Bali or get a yacht, and enjoying the next N years indulging myself and those around me is increasingly appealing. Lockdown definitely made me realise all that.
That said, it's hard to get out of "one more achievement" mode. I'm not sure I'll ever want to do NOTHING.
I know what you mean. I am cutting down to 80% this year, but plan to go on until at least 67. I have hobbies and interests but not at present enough to occupy the days.
The only thing that tempts me is to quit the NHS and go and work in Africa. Mrs Foxy would probably be up for that, but would find being away from the boys and wider family too hard I think.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
I enjoyed all the lockdowns. The roads were empty, I had clandestine trips to France which were great larks and I put a new roof on the barn.
Two of my children took the advice from Dame Jenny Harries to form a bubble with their g/f or b/f if they wanted to test things out and are now married and (hope) living happily ever after.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
I enjoyed all the lockdowns. The roads were empty, I had clandestine trips to France which were great larks and I put a new roof on the barn.
I did to some extent. On a basic level it was enjoyable, the peace & quiet, the removal of many of life's routine hassles, the sense of living through a big moment in history, the opportunity to become knowledgeable about this new virus, and about viruses generally, the R number, the immune system, animal to human transmission, the progress and types of vaccine, all of that was so engrossing, it felt like a privilege, but all the time my pleasure in this strange changed world was tempered by a strong underlying anxiety about catching the wretched thing and dying.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
Everyone?
That is patently not true as several have posted here that they had a 'good' pandemic only a few days ago. I know oxymoron and all that.
I feel really sorry for those who were single and locked away in flats without gardens. It must have been really tough, but because you were amongst most who had a tough time you should exaggerate and make it everyone.
Personally there was no downside for me. I have a large house with a large garden and went from a 2 person household to a 5 person household as children and girlfriend of one of my children came to live with us. Lots of time in the garden, bbqs, etc.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
Others have posted here similar stories.
Might not be fair, but saying 'Everyone' is far from true.
Agreed. Personally I really enjoyed the lockdown period because lots of things that I enjoy (including chatting here) were easy to do and lots of things I don't enjoy (like commuting to work or endless in-person committee meetings) were no longer expected. I don't talk about it much as I appreciate that it was horrible for most people.
What it has done is change my attitude to work, as DavidL suggests. I've always been a workaholic - I'm 74 next month but still have a nearly full-time job, plus a thriving translation business, plus being on the council executive, plus being chair of a CLP. But I've cut down to 4 days/week in my job and intend to retire by the end of this year. I've enough income to see me out, I don't care if I can't afford to buy a house, fly to Bali or get a yacht, and enjoying the next N years indulging myself and those around me is increasingly appealing. Lockdown definitely made me realise all that.
That said, it's hard to get out of "one more achievement" mode. I'm not sure I'll ever want to do NOTHING.
I know what you mean. I am cutting down to 80% this year, but plan to go on until at least 67. I have hobbies and interests but not at present enough to occupy the days.
The only thing that tempts me is to quit the NHS and go and work in Africa. Mrs Foxy would probably be up for that, but would find being away from the boys and wider family too hard I think.
I am supposed to “retire” from my current place at 55 - we’re incentivised to go then. So that means I’ll need a second career. It’s an interesting decision. The choice is either to carry on doing something similar to my previous job but as a contractor or consultant, or something completely different. At the moment I’m considering secondary school teaching.
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
The trouble is, for every Maria Callas, you will get a million permutations on The Black Eyed Peas singing "I gotta feeling".
Same goes with movies. I saw a suggestion a while ago that movie studios are gonna patent troll every possible permutation of stories with millions of AI written scripts. Imagine the rate at which a Disney AI can crank out scripts. Probably in the range of 100k-1m scripts a year with some light touch human editing. It will be impossible to create anything new, because it will be too similar to something already copyrighted.
And then imagine AI has the capacity to actually make the finished product. We're a long way off in film, but in music, the tech exists to do this in the next couple of years.
That AI can churn out some pop trash isn’t impressive. As someone says above, chart music is mostly formulaic already. Whether AI can produce something considered to be up there with the historical greats is another matter.
Music looks a bit like a solved problem anyway, AI or no AI. (Though if John Rutter's Christmassy stuff were replaced by AI output, would anyone notice. Not that it's bad, but it's using both a cookie cutter and a very sugary cookie dough.)
Forget throwaway pop, the greats probably found all the really good classical ideas as well. Hence the whole 20th century thing of composing music that might have been new, but was also largely unlistenable.
In some ways, that's fine. People will still create because that's the human urge, even if there are more efficient ways of creating product. And whilst it's going to make it harder-to-impossible to make a living out of things, that's probably manageable if the cost of these products Falk's to near zero.
The aristocracy have never been traumatised by not having to earn a living.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
I am not suggesting for one moment there isn't a clear and imminent danger from Russia, or even China. There may well be a necessity to mobilise the population to put the nation on a war footing.
My point directly addressed Johnson's fork-tongued claim that he was prepared to do his patriotic duty, laying his life down for freedom and democracy, comfortable in the knowledge that he will not be called on to do any such thing. Almost back to back with this faux- patriot bollocks, Johnson flies the flag for Putin shill Donald Trump.
Well, I managed to avoid National Service (just) and am still glad I did. If there had been an actual war with the country in danger it would have been a different matter. I didn’t want to shoot at Cypriots or Kenyans wanting independence, though, and was very ambivalent about the Malayan Emergency, where many of my friends served.
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
Talking of Taylor Swift, did you find the AI deepfakes of her entirely convincing as you pleasured yourself over the imagery?
Mr. F, I could be wrong but I thought Antigonus was only in his 80s at Ipsus.
On checking, you're correct. What's striking is how many people were fighting into old age, in the past. Many of the Silver Shields were fighting into their seventies.
Indeed, I'm writing an article about Mina the Elder, who was 62 when he fought his last fight. It seems to have been pretty common for elderly people to fight, back in the day.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
I am not suggesting for one moment there isn't a clear and imminent danger from Russia, or even China. There may well be a necessity to mobilise the population to put the nation on a war footing.
My point directly addressed Johnson's fork-tongued claim that he was prepared to do his patriotic duty, laying his life down for freedom and democracy, comfortable in the knowledge that he will not be called on to do any such thing. Almost back to back with this faux- patriot bollocks, Johnson flies the flag for Putin shill Donald Trump.
There are plenty of non-combat roles that people did in WW2 that placed them in varying amounts of danger, allowing them to do their patriotic duty. From firefighters in the blitz to UXO officers; from the merchant marine to air wardens.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
I enjoyed all the lockdowns. The roads were empty, I had clandestine trips to France which were great larks and I put a new roof on the barn.
I did to some extent. On a basic level it was enjoyable, the peace & quiet, the removal of many of life's routine hassles, the sense of living through a big moment in history, the opportunity to become knowledgeable about this new virus, and about viruses generally, the R number, the immune system, animal to human transmission, the progress and types of vaccine, all of that was so engrossing, it felt like a privilege, but all the time my pleasure in this strange changed world was tempered by a strong underlying anxiety about catching the wretched thing and dying.
I do wonder if being infected early, as I was, was an advantage.
While it was certainly an unpleasant, and pretty frightening, experience at the time it did remove all subsequent anxieties about being infected and fears of what would happen if I was.
Curiously I've not had a single cold infection since either whereas before I would get at least one a year - perhaps a long term benefit of covid infection plus four covid vaccinations and two flu vaccinations.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
I'd strongly argue that the rhetoric coming out of Russia shows that the UK is near the top of the list of their enemies. Remember the weapon-that-would-cause-a-tsunami-that-would-destroy-the-UK nonsense? There're plenty of other examples.
I do wonder why Russia hates us so much. Perhaps it's something to take a certain amount of macabre pride in...
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
Music is already entirely derivative and at the top end (in the pop world) is all about the performance, the person and their looks / back story while at the bottom end it’s purely algorithmic. Like art, pretty much. AI accelerates this trend. Synths and sampling had a similar effect in the 70s.
People will still want to hear music and make music. The music industry might eat it's own tail but music in some form or another will always be around. At the bottom end of the music ladder it's just people who just enjoy playing music live, are happy to cover their costs and drinks for the evening or cover the fees for the church hall they've hired.
I've noticed that places which play generic background music play a broad mix of styles from early sixties to very early 2000s (it stops at about 7 Nation Army). These places play very very little from the last 15 years. Just the odd Ed Sheran, Rhianna or Taylor Swift song. Earlier that was totally different. In the nineties Oasis, Blur, Nirvana and the Chilli Peppers played were everywhere, there was no lack of 90s music in the 90s. In the 80s Wham!, A-Ha, Whitney Houston, Duran Duran were played everywhere. There was not a lack of 80s music in the 80s.
It's not that the latest music is not popular, but it's exposure is being drowned out by the old stuff.
I am now listening to an AI movie soundtrack, and... its pretty good
It really is all over. Humanity. We are a bunch of overweight apes that made some OK things but basically soiled the world and it's time to say goodbye
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
I am not suggesting for one moment there isn't a clear and imminent danger from Russia, or even China. There may well be a necessity to mobilise the population to put the nation on a war footing.
My point directly addressed Johnson's fork-tongued claim that he was prepared to do his patriotic duty, laying his life down for freedom and democracy, comfortable in the knowledge that he will not be called on to do any such thing. Almost back to back with this faux- patriot bollocks, Johnson flies the flag for Putin shill Donald Trump.
There are plenty of non-combat roles that people did in WW2 that placed them in varying amounts of danger, allowing them to do their patriotic duty. From firefighters in the blitz to UXO officers; from the merchant marine to air wardens.
Of course, that's correct. There's no reason why people in their 50's and 60's could not serve, away from the front line.
I've just done a little run, and I came across some recent fly-tipping that has nearly blocked a rural cycle path. Some post was visible, so I took a quick look at the addresses of envelopes that were facing upwards.
One was from St Neots, so local. Another was from Chittering; on the A10; slightly less so. Then there were two other envelopes, and an MOT certificate, from East Lothian in Scotland.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
I'd strongly argue that the rhetoric coming out of Russia shows that the UK is near the top of the list of their enemies. Remember the weapon-that-would-cause-a-tsunami-that-would-destroy-the-UK nonsense? There're plenty of other examples.
I do wonder why Russia hates us so much. Perhaps it's something to take a certain amount of macabre pride in...
Indirectly, we're responsible for a ton of Russian casualties, by retraining Ukraine's army after 2014.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
I'd strongly argue that the rhetoric coming out of Russia shows that the UK is near the top of the list of their enemies. Remember the weapon-that-would-cause-a-tsunami-that-would-destroy-the-UK nonsense? There're plenty of other examples.
I do wonder why Russia hates us so much. Perhaps it's something to take a certain amount of macabre pride in...
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
No, it didn't. You keep on making grand statements like that, and when you're proved wrong - as you did with your stupid claims about kids and toilet training - you deny reality.
You claim to have a high IQ. It'd be good if you actually showed signs of using it occasionally...
If you actually wanted to see, with your own eyes, how little I give the tiniest fuck of an iota of a quark about your stupid dumb low IQ marathon-running weirdo freakaloid dumb opinion of me, you would actually need a proton-powered nanobotic quantum-micro-super-nano-microscope, which hasn't even been invented yet
And by the way @Leon, I am amused by the way you think "marathon-running" is in any way an insult.
"Look at that really fit man over there! He's a marathon runner, the lowest of the low. Jail's too good for him..."
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
I'd strongly argue that the rhetoric coming out of Russia shows that the UK is near the top of the list of their enemies. Remember the weapon-that-would-cause-a-tsunami-that-would-destroy-the-UK nonsense? There're plenty of other examples.
I do wonder why Russia hates us so much. Perhaps it's something to take a certain amount of macabre pride in...
They may hate us but they aren't going to attack a nation with nukes on subs directly, they hate us because of the weapons and support we have given Zelensky.
If Farage or Corbyn was PM I expect Putin would be rather more amenable to the UK
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
I'd strongly argue that the rhetoric coming out of Russia shows that the UK is near the top of the list of their enemies. Remember the weapon-that-would-cause-a-tsunami-that-would-destroy-the-UK nonsense? There're plenty of other examples.
I do wonder why Russia hates us so much. Perhaps it's something to take a certain amount of macabre pride in...
I suppose there’s a long history of rivalry, coupled with us being more of a peer than the US, and therefore fair game for WW3 fantasies.
We are also comfortably “other”. The UK never features in their plans for the Russian world. The maps tend to go as far as Germany or at a push France, with us remaining outside their empire.
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
The trouble is, for every Maria Callas, you will get a million permutations on The Black Eyed Peas singing "I gotta feeling".
Same goes with movies. I saw a suggestion a while ago that movie studios are gonna patent troll every possible permutation of stories with millions of AI written scripts. Imagine the rate at which a Disney AI can crank out scripts. Probably in the range of 100k-1m scripts a year with some light touch human editing. It will be impossible to create anything new, because it will be too similar to something already copyrighted.
And then imagine AI has the capacity to actually make the finished product. We're a long way off in film, but in music, the tech exists to do this in the next couple of years.
That AI can churn out some pop trash isn’t impressive. As someone says above, chart music is mostly formulaic already. Whether AI can produce something considered to be up there with the historical greats is another matter.
Yes, someone send us a link when there is a new late Beethoven string quartet or Schubert sonata. Even an extra Mozart string quintet would be nice to have. Another Figaro? A minute of music as good as the first minute of Rosenkavalier or Falstaff? The last twenty minutes of Walkure? I shall wait and see.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
I'd strongly argue that the rhetoric coming out of Russia shows that the UK is near the top of the list of their enemies. Remember the weapon-that-would-cause-a-tsunami-that-would-destroy-the-UK nonsense? There're plenty of other examples.
I do wonder why Russia hates us so much. Perhaps it's something to take a certain amount of macabre pride in...
They may hate us but they aren't going to attack a nation with nukes on subs directly, they hate us because of the weapons and support we have given Zelensky
They hated us before that.
Which is puzzling, really. Historically we've always been reasonably friendly to Russia. Even in the Cold War there were feelers out.
Perhaps somebody laughed at Putin's appendage in the gents at King's Cross once?
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
I'd strongly argue that the rhetoric coming out of Russia shows that the UK is near the top of the list of their enemies. Remember the weapon-that-would-cause-a-tsunami-that-would-destroy-the-UK nonsense? There're plenty of other examples.
I do wonder why Russia hates us so much. Perhaps it's something to take a certain amount of macabre pride in...
I suppose there’s a long history of rivalry, coupled with us being more of a peer than the US, and therefore fair game for WW3 fantasies.
We are also comfortably “other”. The UK never features in their plans for the Russian world. The maps tend to go as far as Germany or at a push France, with us remaining outside their empire.
In Russia, Britain is traditionally viewed as duplicitous, treacherous and basically untrustworthy in international affairs (no idea why 😗🎶).
A common Soviet slang term (you don't hear it much these days, probably because of Londongrad, etc.) for Britain was Остров пиратов (Pirate Island).
O/T but I see Trump's average lead is now up to 4.3% on RCP. I'm not seeing him being hurt, politically, by the court cases.
Give it time. He'll be trailing in the polls by the summer.
Part of his lead is from people who didn't vote in 2020 and won't vote this time either. They're just fed up with it all. You meet them on the doorstep. They don't vote.
There is also evidence from Iowa and NH that the his polling is higher than his actual votes because of the NV effect and/or that some people lie to pollsters.
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
I alternate between being a total doomer and "this is the best thing ever, for everything".
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
It is almost certainly the death of music as we know it. Once you think it through
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
Music is already entirely derivative and at the top end (in the pop world) is all about the performance, the person and their looks / back story while at the bottom end it’s purely algorithmic. Like art, pretty much. AI accelerates this trend. Synths and sampling had a similar effect in the 70s.
People will still want to hear music and make music. The music industry might eat it's own tail but music in some form or another will always be around. At the bottom end of the music ladder it's just people who just enjoy playing music live, are happy to cover their costs and drinks for the evening or cover the fees for the church hall they've hired.
I've noticed that places which play generic background music play a broad mix of styles from early sixties to very early 2000s (it stops at about 7 Nation Army). These places play very very little from the last 15 years. Just the odd Ed Sheran, Rhianna or Taylor Swift song. Earlier that was totally different. In the nineties Oasis, Blur, Nirvana and the Chilli Peppers played were everywhere, there was no lack of 90s music in the 90s. In the 80s Wham!, A-Ha, Whitney Houston, Duran Duran were played everywhere. There was not a lack of 80s music in the 80s.
It's not that the latest music is not popular, but it's exposure is being drowned out by the old stuff.
On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars. There's no way for this to be replicated by AI or VR or any of that. I'm not particularly a skeptic, it's changing the world and will continue to do so, but the human touch will always remain crucial in many many things. In most things actually.
The polls are widening and that is only going to get worse. I think the tories will panic to save what is left of the Parliamentary group. Recession, summer boats, brexit border chaos,, medicine shortages, interest rates will remain high, ever more infighting on the right and reform in the ascendant > there is simply less and less to wait for. They can wait, but it would be the wrong move. It is time to cut losses now.
I agree.
think of a re-election campaign as nesting. it has to align with fair news cycle - you can’t campaign on we have turned a corner as you enter recession, nor campaign on making progress on boat crossing in the middle of a boat crossing surge. Recession, summer boats are just some of the bad news cycles plumbed in to splurge out from media’s sewage pipe and all over Rishi and his government throughout summer and Autumn, starting in May with local election hammering, ongoing mortgage crisis of key voters deepening by switching to higher mortgage deals, and then comes the interim covid report publication!
We have to consider the backdrop to the campaign in Q3 and 4. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in serious trouble.
Agreed, although they are already well into 'serious trouble' territory. If this parliament doesn’t close down on March 26, the Conservative Party with be in existential trouble.
That’s right. At this moment we can expect some swingback in the polls. But with covid enquiry reporting, economy in trouble, and a boat crossing surge on, they will have absolutely no control of the media narrative, something extraordinary could happen to the polling like meeting Ref half way and cross over.
The Tories having ripped up all their trump cards and reasons for existing - fiscal conservatism, strong borders, party of business, strong military and respecting rule of law - they have absolutely no divine right to poll 20% at the next election. They have lost a lot of previously solid conservative minded voters to not liking Brexit, and alt right populists just view it as a crap government.
If that predicted boat crossing splurge does come this summer on top of everything else, then something truly unthinkable could happen to the polling before an October or later election. 😕
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
I enjoyed all the lockdowns. The roads were empty, I had clandestine trips to France which were great larks and I put a new roof on the barn.
Two of my children took the advice from Dame Jenny Harries to form a bubble with their g/f or b/f if they wanted to test things out and are now married and (hope) living happily ever after.
My lad probably has lockdown to thank for his place at Oxford. When his GCSEs were cancelled, he devoted his time instead to learning all about cryptocurrencies and decentralised finance, which evolved into a deep interest in economics generally. Come interview time, he was able to talk happily and sufficiently passionately about the topic to win a place on their Economics and Management course. He's now in his second year and loving it.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
I am not suggesting for one moment there isn't a clear and imminent danger from Russia, or even China. There may well be a necessity to mobilise the population to put the nation on a war footing.
My point directly addressed Johnson's fork-tongued claim that he was prepared to do his patriotic duty, laying his life down for freedom and democracy, comfortable in the knowledge that he will not be called on to do any such thing. Almost back to back with this faux- patriot bollocks, Johnson flies the flag for Putin shill Donald Trump.
There are plenty of non-combat roles that people did in WW2 that placed them in varying amounts of danger, allowing them to do their patriotic duty. From firefighters in the blitz to UXO officers; from the merchant marine to air wardens.
Of course, that's correct. There's no reason why people in their 50's and 60's could not serve, away from the front line.
Trump’s margin over Biden in the hypothetical matchup is significantly boosted by support from voters who say they did not cast a ballot in 2020, with these voters breaking in Trump’s favor by 26 points in Georgia and 40 points in Michigan. Those who report having voted in 2020 say they broke for Biden over Trump in that election, but as of now, they tilt in Trump’s favor for 2024 in both states, with Biden holding on to fewer of his 2020 backers than does Trump.
Those numbers hint at possible challenges for both candidates in the long campaign ahead. Trump’s advantage rests on the assumption that he can both maintain support among a fickle, politically disengaged group and convince them to actually vote, while Biden will need to win back the support of disaffected former backers who show little excitement about his reelection bid.
Interesting but it doesn't really go into why this is happening. Is it a consequence of long covid? People getting used to days at home from WFH and finding 5 days at the office or factory just too hard? A break down in the discipline that existed pre-Covid and a realisation that there is more to life than work? A greater awareness that going to work with an infection has consequences for your co-workers?
I recall seeing some similar trends in the UK as well. It would be very interesting if someone investigated whether this is an international phenomenon. It would help to explain the somewhat anaemic growth the west is suffering.
Lockdown fucked up everyone, psychologically
One way or another
The second most catastrophic public health mistake in a century. After the original idea to do gain of function virology on dangerous bugs in dodgy labs in the centre of a massive Chinese city
Everyone?
That is patently not true as several have posted here that they had a 'good' pandemic only a few days ago. I know oxymoron and all that.
I feel really sorry for those who were single and locked away in flats without gardens. It must have been really tough, but because you were amongst most who had a tough time you should exaggerate and make it everyone.
Personally there was no downside for me. I have a large house with a large garden and went from a 2 person household to a 5 person household as children and girlfriend of one of my children came to live with us. Lots of time in the garden, bbqs, etc.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
Others have posted here similar stories.
Might not be fair, but saying 'Everyone' is far from true.
Agreed. Personally I really enjoyed the lockdown period because lots of things that I enjoy (including chatting here) were easy to do and lots of things I don't enjoy (like commuting to work or endless in-person committee meetings) were no longer expected. I don't talk about it much as I appreciate that it was horrible for most people.
What it has done is change my attitude to work, as DavidL suggests. I've always been a workaholic - I'm 74 next month but still have a nearly full-time job, plus a thriving translation business, plus being on the council executive, plus being chair of a CLP. But I've cut down to 4 days/week in my job and intend to retire by the end of this year. I've enough income to see me out, I don't care if I can't afford to buy a house, fly to Bali or get a yacht, and enjoying the next N years indulging myself and those around me is increasingly appealing. Lockdown definitely made me realise all that.
That said, it's hard to get out of "one more achievement" mode. I'm not sure I'll ever want to do NOTHING.
I know what you mean. I am cutting down to 80% this year, but plan to go on until at least 67. I have hobbies and interests but not at present enough to occupy the days.
The only thing that tempts me is to quit the NHS and go and work in Africa. Mrs Foxy would probably be up for that, but would find being away from the boys and wider family too hard I think.
I am supposed to “retire” from my current place at 55 - we’re incentivised to go then. So that means I’ll need a second career. It’s an interesting decision. The choice is either to carry on doing something similar to my previous job but as a contractor or consultant, or something completely different. At the moment I’m considering secondary school teaching.
I do wonder if being infected early, as I was, was an advantage.
While it was certainly an unpleasant, and pretty frightening, experience at the time it did remove all subsequent anxieties about being infected and fears of what would happen if I was.
Curiously I've not had a single cold infection since either whereas before I would get at least one a year - perhaps a long term benefit of covid infection plus four covid vaccinations and two flu vaccinations.
I caught COVID pretty late (spring 2023) but haven't had a cold infection since 2019 now. The first part of that clearly due to lockdown and WFH, but I would have expected to have caught at least one cold since then. Maybe people are just on average a bit more inclined not to come into the office when they have a cold?
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
I enjoyed all the lockdowns. The roads were empty, I had clandestine trips to France which were great larks and I put a new roof on the barn.
I did to some extent. On a basic level it was enjoyable, the peace & quiet, the removal of many of life's routine hassles, the sense of living through a big moment in history, the opportunity to become knowledgeable about this new virus, and about viruses generally, the R number, the immune system, animal to human transmission, the progress and types of vaccine, all of that was so engrossing, it felt like a privilege, but all the time my pleasure in this strange changed world was tempered by a strong underlying anxiety about catching the wretched thing and dying.
I do wonder if being infected early, as I was, was an advantage.
While it was certainly an unpleasant, and pretty frightening, experience at the time it did remove all subsequent anxieties about being infected and fears of what would happen if I was.
Curiously I've not had a single cold infection since either whereas before I would get at least one a year - perhaps a long term benefit of covid infection plus four covid vaccinations and two flu vaccinations.
A nice thought whether true or not. You deserve a reward for catching it early and bad and getting through it.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
A pedant writes, Salisbury did not show we have enemies. Salisbury showed Russia thought Britain to weak to stop an extra-territorial assassination of Russian traitors, not that it saw Britain as an enemy. It is the sort of thing Israel does, and possibly the United States.
Rubbish. Can you remember what happened in Salisbury, and the way it was done? And to add to the evidence, have you heard what Russia says about us?
Don't condone Russia's behaviour by pretending we're all as bad as them.
I'm not pretending we are as bad as them. I'm saying Russia did not attack Britain but what it saw as a Russian traitor who just happened to be in Salisbury, because it saw Britain as too weak to object. And that Russia is not the only exponent of extra-territorial assassinations of those it believes have wronged it.
I'd strongly argue that the rhetoric coming out of Russia shows that the UK is near the top of the list of their enemies. Remember the weapon-that-would-cause-a-tsunami-that-would-destroy-the-UK nonsense? There're plenty of other examples.
I do wonder why Russia hates us so much. Perhaps it's something to take a certain amount of macabre pride in...
They may hate us but they aren't going to attack a nation with nukes on subs directly, they hate us because of the weapons and support we have given Zelensky
They hated us before that.
Which is puzzling, really. Historically we've always been reasonably friendly to Russia. Even in the Cold War there were feelers out.
Perhaps somebody laughed at Putin's appendage in the gents at King's Cross once?
we weren't hated by the Russians as much as the Americans (obviously) and the erstwhile Soviet republics and satellite states (whom they probably regarded as traitors). Germany was still disliked more than the UK, presumably due to lingering ill-feeling from WWII.
Since then though, we seem to have moved up the rankings, presumably indeed because of our enthusiastic support for Ukraine.
For some reason, Private Johnson is trending on Twitter.
Lots of people are taking the p*ss out of him, but sadly I fear he's correct.
We're facing a potentially much larger conflict. Instead of taking the p*ss out of him, people should consider what we need to do to avoid such a conflict. It'd be interesting to see what their answers are.
Oh come off it Jessops. Johnson can grandstand all he likes. He isn't getting called up on the grounds of age alone.
It is disingenuous for amoral scoundrels of my age to claim patriotism by signing up to a life- threatening scheme from which they know they will be rejected.
You're wrong. There's a real danger here; and one that some people want us to sleepwalk into. Our enemies - and sadly, as Salisbury and other events show, we have enemies - see us as militarily strong, but politically weak.
My granddad was in a reserved occupation and was over-age for conscription. Despite this, and despite living about as far from the sea as it is possible to get in the UK, he argued to get into the navy, and joined DEMS. I'm proud of him, but he shouldn't have had to make that decision.
I don't want to have to make the same decision, if it came for that. I want war to be avoided. But sticking your had up your backside and pretending it's not a risk - or that it's somehow *our* fault - is not going to reduce the risks of war. It will increase them.
I am not suggesting for one moment there isn't a clear and imminent danger from Russia, or even China. There may well be a necessity to mobilise the population to put the nation on a war footing.
My point directly addressed Johnson's fork-tongued claim that he was prepared to do his patriotic duty, laying his life down for freedom and democracy, comfortable in the knowledge that he will not be called on to do any such thing. Almost back to back with this faux- patriot bollocks, Johnson flies the flag for Putin shill Donald Trump.
The biggest revelation for me is that the Mail is now expecting people to pay to read its trash online.
As I'm not going to do that, I can't really judge the merits of Johnson's article beyond the absurdity of the idea that the fat clown would be more help than hindrance in a military context.
Quite possibly a case can be made for increasing military spending, particularly on high-tech weaponry, but calls to bring back national service seem to belong to the mentality obsessed with fighting the last war but four.
Comments
You probably have to be a very special sort of Spad to be available to give political advice to the government right now.
AI Music is just starting to edge out of total drecky rubbishness, into mediocrity, with just a hint of "OK that's not so terrible"
We all know where this ends. See the Death of Photography, passim
It really is all over. Humanity. We are a bunch of overweight apes that made some OK things but basically soiled the world and it's time to say goodbye
"Mercedes' new AI will remix your music as you drive!
Mercedes-AMG & Will-I-Am have launched MBUX Sound Drive at CES 2024."
https://x.com/eemmanuels4/status/1748779465943941523?s=20
Always wondered how Joy Division's "Ceremony" would sound had Ian Curtis actually got round to recording it in the studio, now with AI, I can hear a pretty close approximation. Mind blown.
Then, I realise how close we are ( a year? five? ) to the likes of Spotify being flooded with a million identikit tracks, churned out by AI in minutes.
It's kinda like the Simulation Argument in a way. If it takes a real band a year to produce anything of note, but an AI five minutes to create a full album, eventually the ratio of AI produced stuff to genuine art is going to be a million to one. Real stuff will still exist, but it will be impossible to find. Most mainstream music sounds bad and auto-generated already anyway, and most people won't notice the difference. The same as how most people can't distinguish between human and (well prompted) AI written text (not GPT guff), unless they know what they're looking for.
Perhaps someone should tell him that Ukraine is suffering a manpower shortage and that they’ll happily take the older gentleman.
Where, when, how or even if the infrastructure is actually built is an irrelevance except in its ability to generate even more work for the consultants and lawyers.
Because music is frozen maths. It is virtually ALL algorithms. And the human touches on top can be so easily faked
You can have Maria callas singing taylor swift’s Red with the incredible string band as backing
What's happening on WhatsApp becomes more important that what's happening in the real world.
USN all-black uniforms looked weirdly fascistic. Perhaps I’ve been conditioned by seeing them represented mostly in the Pacific theatre.
Or indeed had just penned a DM piece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4dgzIifm20
but which increased England's declaration score by about all of four runs:
https://www.espncricinfo.com/series/england-tour-of-new-zealand-1977-78-61774/new-zealand-vs-england-2nd-test-63204/full-scorecard
“The whole system of advice and decision making was unbalanced,” he says. “There was almost no voice for taking account of mental health. There was almost no account taken of the care system which has much less voice and status in Whitehall than the hospitals."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/01/26/sir-geoff-mulgan-horizon-post-office-tony-blair-fujitsu/?li_source=LI&li_medium=for_you
That is patently not true as several have posted here that they had a 'good' pandemic only a few days ago. I know oxymoron and all that.
I feel really sorry for those who were single and locked away in flats without gardens. It must have been really tough, but because you were amongst most who had a tough time you should exaggerate and make it everyone.
Personally there was no downside for me. I have a large house with a large garden and went from a 2 person household to a 5 person household as children and girlfriend of one of my children came to live with us. Lots of time in the garden, bbqs, etc.
I was a pandemic volunteer and really enjoyed that and I travelled under 'Amber' (as I didn't have to worry about quarantining) so I went to Portugal for a long trip and cycled in France. Flights and ferries were empty so travel was enjoyable, the only downside was a bit of paperwork and testing which was trivial.
Others have posted here similar stories.
Might not be fair, but saying 'Everyone' is far from true.
Because it’s tribal, if one tribe goes far in one direction they will alienate some if their support but bring a large chunk of the rest on a journey with them. Trump has very successfully done that in the US. Corbyn arguably did so for a couple of years before going off the boil. Boris and others very successfully shifted the window on Brexit over a number of years. I saw the phenomenon up close with several Labour supporting friends around the time of the Iraq war too.
I fear - and predict - that come autumn enough voices in the Tory right and the press will be extolling the virtues of Trump that you’ll see about 20-30% of UK opinion shifting to accept him as being on their side. It’ll start out as a “they’re all as bad as each other” move on to “they’re both flawed but at least Trump doesn’t hate Britain” and end up with close to full throated support.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hiseland
Mr. F, I could be wrong but I thought Antigonus was only in his 80s at Ipsus.
At the start, in 1997 or 2010, say, parties are well -disciplined. But also, they have an agenda to keep themselves busy, and the problems facing the nation are congenial ones. In 1997, the problem was how skinny and stingy the state was, the solutions were on the left. In 2010, the problems needed some variant of Conservative medicine.
By the end of the term, the opposite is true. The problems facing the county now are not going to be solved by spending less on public services. That creates irritation and frustration ("Why can't we just cut like Maggie did? What do you mean, all the palatable cuts have been done?").
And if governing isn't satisfying any more, opposition doesn't look like the impotence it is. It becomes an opportunity to do the fun bits of politics- dreaming dreams and scheming schemes and not having to worry if they work in boring old reality.
It's fun, but self indulgence. What's unusual about this government is the extent that they're acting like an opposition before they become one. I wonder if that's a consequence of the 2019 reset. A bit like turning the milometer back on a car, it might look like a refresh, but it doesn't change the state of the actual vehicle.
Same goes with movies. I saw a suggestion a while ago that movie studios are gonna patent troll every possible permutation of stories with millions of AI written scripts. Imagine the rate at which a Disney AI can crank out scripts. Probably in the range of 100k-1m scripts a year with some light touch human editing. It will be impossible to create anything new, because it will be too similar to something already copyrighted.
And then imagine AI has the capacity to actually make the finished product. We're a long way off in film, but in music, the tech exists to do this in the next couple of years.
The only real way to now make money as a musician, is live performances. But thanks to the new technology, you often have a worldwide audience that will pay for tickets.
Funny story, top of the iTunes chart in the US right now is a rap song by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro. Daily and even hourly charts, allow people with an online following to get music to #1 without any record label involvement.
https://kworb.net/charts/itunes/us.html
https://youtube.com/watch?v=5kGpohEpuTE
This is an early example.
https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/1178278
What it has done is change my attitude to work, as DavidL suggests. I've always been a workaholic - I'm 74 next month but still have a nearly full-time job, plus a thriving translation business, plus being on the council executive, plus being chair of a CLP. But I've cut down to 4 days/week in my job and intend to retire by the end of this year. I've enough income to see me out, I don't care if I can't afford to buy a house, fly to Bali or get a yacht, and enjoying the next N years indulging myself and those around me is increasingly appealing. Lockdown definitely made me realise all that.
That said, it's hard to get out of "one more achievement" mode. I'm not sure I'll ever want to do NOTHING.
Few people would have had a better experience than they would otherwise but some would have had only minor disadvantages compared with others.
The only positives I can think of were the much lower road traffic in spring and summer 2020 and the encouragement it gave for walking and exploring the local area.
But like all things that break routines and patterns it might have given people the opportunity to do new things, improve their skillset or get their finances in order.
My point directly addressed Johnson's fork-tongued claim that he was prepared to do his patriotic duty, laying his life down for freedom and democracy, comfortable in the knowledge that he will not be called on to do any such thing. Almost back to back with this faux- patriot bollocks, Johnson flies the flag for Putin shill Donald Trump.
One false note I thought was an anonymous U boat commander constantly broadcasting for you the war will shortly be over type messages. May have happened, may have not, who knows?
How will you be able to find it?
If an AI can crank out a million albums in the time it takes one good artist to put out one good album, the signal to noise ratio makes it almost impossible to find. Especially if the studios and PR machine has a vested interest in getting people to listen to the auto-generated stuff.
And even if you can find it... It's a million monkeys on a million typewriters, but only one of those albums needs to be any good before 'real' music has a serious problem.
It’s incredibly frustrating, as someone with experience of other countries where stuff just gets done.
My old anecdote is the comparison between Dubai Airport’s Terminal 3 and Heathrow’s Terminal 5. Roughly similar project scope, a bunch of new buildings on an existing airfield, with new access roads to the buildings. Announced at roughly the same time, Dubai had their new terminal open before Heathrow’s planning inquiry had concluded.
NIMBYism is actively holding the country back, and as a result nothing gets done and the quality of life falls. If I were writing a law, I’d make compulsory purchase of land be set at 200% of fair market value, but with much less right of appeal. If Parliement passes a law that says Project X will be built, then the work starts the following week on buying up everything in the way of it. Even paying double, it will be miles cheaper than the project enduring years of delays because someone won’t sell up, or an activist group found some rare newt in a lake close by.
I thought it was a very typical adaptation of Forster, in that it was an action movie that was unable to get the core of the novel. But, since the core of his novels are understanding the thoughts and feelings of a character, particularly 'a man alone,' it's nearly impossible to film them as he wrote them.
The only thing that tempts me is to quit the NHS and go and work in Africa. Mrs Foxy would probably be up for that, but would find being away from the boys and wider family too hard I think.
Has anyone ever seen Boris Johnson and Corporal Jack Jones in the same room?
Forget throwaway pop, the greats probably found all the really good classical ideas as well. Hence the whole 20th century thing of composing music that might have been new, but was also largely unlistenable.
In some ways, that's fine. People will still create because that's the human urge, even if there are more efficient ways of creating product. And whilst it's going to make it harder-to-impossible to make a living out of things, that's probably manageable if the cost of these products Falk's to near zero.
The aristocracy have never been traumatised by not having to earn a living.
I didn’t want to shoot at Cypriots or Kenyans wanting independence, though, and was very ambivalent about the Malayan Emergency, where many of my friends served.
Indeed, I'm writing an article about Mina the Elder, who was 62 when he fought his last fight. It seems to have been pretty common for elderly people to fight, back in the day.
While it was certainly an unpleasant, and pretty frightening, experience at the time it did remove all subsequent anxieties about being infected and fears of what would happen if I was.
Curiously I've not had a single cold infection since either whereas before I would get at least one a year - perhaps a long term benefit of covid infection plus four covid vaccinations and two flu vaccinations.
Cheltenham 1.15 - Victtorino
Cheltenham 2.25 - Elixir De Nutz
Cheltenham 3.00 - Love Envoi
Doncaster 3.15 - Sweet Will
😍 Love Envoi!
I do wonder why Russia hates us so much. Perhaps it's something to take a certain amount of macabre pride in...
I've noticed that places which play generic background music play a broad mix of styles from early sixties to very early 2000s (it stops at about 7 Nation Army). These places play very very little from the last 15 years. Just the odd Ed Sheran, Rhianna or Taylor Swift song. Earlier that was totally different. In the nineties Oasis, Blur, Nirvana and the Chilli Peppers played were everywhere, there was no lack of 90s music in the 90s. In the 80s Wham!, A-Ha, Whitney Houston, Duran Duran were played everywhere. There was not a lack of 80s music in the 80s.
It's not that the latest music is not popular, but it's exposure is being drowned out by the old stuff.
I've just done a little run, and I came across some recent fly-tipping that has nearly blocked a rural cycle path. Some post was visible, so I took a quick look at the addresses of envelopes that were facing upwards.
One was from St Neots, so local. Another was from Chittering; on the A10; slightly less so. Then there were two other envelopes, and an MOT certificate, from East Lothian in Scotland.
Struck me as being quite a diverse grouping.
It doesn't speak Russian.
"Look at that really fit man over there! He's a marathon runner, the lowest of the low. Jail's too good for him..."
If Farage or Corbyn was PM I expect Putin would be rather more amenable to the UK
We are also comfortably “other”. The UK never features in their plans for the Russian world. The maps tend to go as far as Germany or at a push France, with us remaining outside their empire.
Which is puzzling, really. Historically we've always been reasonably friendly to Russia. Even in the Cold War there were feelers out.
Perhaps somebody laughed at Putin's appendage in the gents at King's Cross once?
While Trump still leads nationally he also trails in the latest Pennsylvania and Michigan polls however
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/pennsylvania/
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/michigan/
A common Soviet slang term (you don't hear it much these days, probably because of Londongrad, etc.) for Britain was Остров пиратов (Pirate Island).
There is also evidence from Iowa and NH that the his polling is higher than his actual votes because of the NV effect and/or that some people lie to pollsters.
He might also die.
The Tories having ripped up all their trump cards and reasons for existing - fiscal conservatism, strong borders, party of business, strong military and respecting rule of law - they have absolutely no divine right to poll 20% at the next election. They have lost a lot of previously solid conservative minded voters to not liking Brexit, and alt right populists just view it as a crap government.
If that predicted boat crossing splurge does come this summer on top of everything else, then something truly unthinkable could happen to the polling before an October or later election. 😕
Trump’s margin over Biden in the hypothetical matchup is significantly boosted by support from voters who say they did not cast a ballot in 2020, with these voters breaking in Trump’s favor by 26 points in Georgia and 40 points in Michigan. Those who report having voted in 2020 say they broke for Biden over Trump in that election, but as of now, they tilt in Trump’s favor for 2024 in both states, with Biden holding on to fewer of his 2020 backers than does Trump.
Those numbers hint at possible challenges for both candidates in the long campaign ahead. Trump’s advantage rests on the assumption that he can both maintain support among a fickle, politically disengaged group and convince them to actually vote, while Biden will need to win back the support of disaffected former backers who show little excitement about his reelection bid.
https://www.statista.com/chart/12492/who-russians-consider-their-greatest-enemies/
we weren't hated by the Russians as much as the Americans (obviously) and the erstwhile Soviet republics and satellite states (whom they probably regarded as traitors). Germany was still disliked more than the UK, presumably due to lingering ill-feeling from WWII.
Since then though, we seem to have moved up the rankings, presumably indeed because of our enthusiastic support for Ukraine.
As I'm not going to do that, I can't really judge the merits of Johnson's article beyond the absurdity of the idea that the fat clown would be more help than hindrance in a military context.
Quite possibly a case can be made for increasing military spending, particularly on high-tech weaponry, but calls to bring back national service seem to belong to the mentality obsessed with fighting the last war but four.