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.
I love the confidence you proclaim this with considering ABBAs virtual concert generated over £300m turnover in its first year......
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.
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.
We can see from Ukraine that a big war requires big numbers of people.
I also see uneasy parallels between the situation now and the situation in Europe in 1936-1938. A lot of people, for good and bad reasons, saying that a big war is impossible, because it would be mad. And a few people warning that a big war is possible being called 'warmongers', even though they were proved correct.
The parallels cannot be extended too far, but the idea that another great war is impossible is becoming increasingly unsupportable.
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.
I'm a bit mystified by all this conscription guff, we already have a citizen army called the TA. Wouldn't it be better to ramp up recruitment for them rather than call up a load of untrained fatties at the outbreak of some hypothetical conflict?
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.
I couldn't read it, but did he advocate the Churchillian direction of older people into munitions factory work, perhaps somewhere like ROF Caerwent, Newport or Wrecsam, or the factories on Clydeside?
Not much risk of being ordered to go down the coal mines, mind.
He'd be liable for ARP, fire service or police work though.
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.
I love the confidence you proclaim this with considering ABBAs virtual concert generated over £300m turnover in its first year......
No that sounds great too - well if you like ABBA - but as addition not replacement.
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.
“The date I really don’t understand is November, which is a crap month to be campaigning in the dark, cold, and wet.”
It worked okay last time, in December I think. There was no lesson to learn to say we can’t do winter months was there?
No one packs it in and hibernates through the winter in this country, we just turn lights on and carry on. If you can go to work or shopping or cinema or pub, you can have an election. If knocking on doors is a bit harder, the trade off could be more people following it on telly than election in summer month?
I don’t think dark and bad weather is much of a consideration to the date, It’s still a bit autumnal this side of Christmas - the number 1 consideration to have an election in October, November or later, is can you control the news narrative in the build up and during it? where the Tories would like the focus on Sir Beer Korma and his wait and see manifesto, they need beware of boat crossings, economic news, migration figures, the covid enquiry reporting, as backdrop to their ‘we’ve turned the corner’ campaign.
Hmm. So Boris Johnson really could be in the midst of front line action.
Has anyone ever seen Boris Johnson and Corporal Jack Jones in the same room?
Jones was a veteran with over 30 years serving the colours. Johnson hasn't Dunn any military service.
Apparently the Dads Army producers had gone to the trouble of giving Corporal Jones (and the other men) the correct medal ribbons for their back-stories, as this video explains:-
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.
Well I only had mild-moderate symptoms for two weeks so nowhere near as bad as many others. It was the 'novel' aspect that was perturbing - people become used to how their body feels, whether ill or well, and having it feel painfully different was worrying.
Another advantage of having been infected early was I became a much safer person to others so was able to help out a few oldies without having to worry about potentially infecting them.
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.
We can see from Ukraine that a big war requires big numbers of people.
I also see uneasy parallels between the situation now and the situation in Europe in 1936-1938. A lot of people, for good and bad reasons, saying that a big war is impossible, because it would be mad. And a few people warning that a big war is possible being called 'warmongers', even though they were proved correct.
The parallels cannot be extended too far, but the idea that another great war is impossible is becoming increasingly unsupportable.
Your thoughts seem pretty simplistic.
But if you like simplistic thinking based on "numbers of people", you should console yourself with some population numbers: Russia: 143m Ukraine (currently deadlocked with Russia): 44m European Union: 448m USA: 332m
Hmm. So Boris Johnson really could be in the midst of front line action.
Has anyone ever seen Boris Johnson and Corporal Jack Jones in the same room?
Jones was a veteran with over 30 years serving the colours. Johnson hasn't Dunn any military service.
Mr J has served - CCF. I couldn't see the rest of the article but assuming he got a Certificate A or whatever it was called, he'd have had a much better chance of getting a commission on conscription.
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.
We can see from Ukraine that a big war requires big numbers of people.
I also see uneasy parallels between the situation now and the situation in Europe in 1936-1938. A lot of people, for good and bad reasons, saying that a big war is impossible, because it would be mad. And a few people warning that a big war is possible being called 'warmongers', even though they were proved correct.
The parallels cannot be extended too far, but the idea that another great war is impossible is becoming increasingly unsupportable.
Between who and who? Us, the US (insofar as it remains engaged with the world), Western Europe and other Anglo nations against Russia, Iran and China, I guess. But what of the other medium powers - Brazil, India, the Arab countries, etc? There is a risk that we are driving them into the arms of our enemies with, for example, our support for Israel's destruction of Gaza. If there is a global war coming, our actions today may already influence the outcome.
I've said for ages that it'll be Nov 14th, called from (or, technically, immediately after), the Tory conference.
April or May is hard because of the polls. Why lose now when you can not lose now. June / early July will be impossible after the local elections. The summer holidays is impossible for practical reasons. September is also impossible because you'd have to call it, and campaign, in the same summer holidays. December means a month of faffing about in Westminster after the conferences, to no useful end. January is even more faffing, plus disrupting the election with Xmas / NY, to media, public (and activist) annoyance.
So Oct / Nov is the only window that makes sense.
The argument for October is that it's lighter, doesn't get disrupted at the end with the uncertainties of a Trump win or uncertain result in America, and doesn't give the opposition a parliamentary bite at the cherry.
The argument for November is that the Tory conference is the last decent chance the Tories have to set the narrative largely on their own initiative.
Of the two, I'd favour November but Oct is perhaps the value bet.
“ called from (or, technically, immediately after), the Tory conference.”
What about the argument, last years conference was such a mess Tories started to fall in the polls after it, largely because of it.
This years conference season is anniversary of Trussterfuck, and of Sunak taking over. 🫣 It also gives Labour and libdems all the bounce from their conferences too, and the whole point of waiting till the conference would be to try to out bounce the other parties.
Tories would probably get a better election result avoiding another conference.
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.
Yes, AI cannot do live music, and that rather than some AI pablum is where people will hear new and original stuff.
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.
Boris could perhaps entertain the troops.
By organising parties, perhaps.
Or he could do that thing where he gets stuck on a zipwire. Dangles there, mid-air, cheery grin, legs akimbo - LOL! - and the troops almost wet themselves, surrendering in the moment to this inspired piece of slapstick, which like all such classic routines works all the better for having seen it many times before. Refreshed and fortified by the gift of laughter they return to the front feeling ten feet tall.
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.
We can see from Ukraine that a big war requires big numbers of people.
I also see uneasy parallels between the situation now and the situation in Europe in 1936-1938. A lot of people, for good and bad reasons, saying that a big war is impossible, because it would be mad. And a few people warning that a big war is possible being called 'warmongers', even though they were proved correct.
The parallels cannot be extended too far, but the idea that another great war is impossible is becoming increasingly unsupportable.
Between who and who? Us, the US (insofar as it remains engaged with the world), Western Europe and other Anglo nations against Russia, Iran and China, I guess. But what of the other medium powers - Brazil, India, the Arab countries, etc? There is a risk that we are driving them into the arms of our enemies with, for example, our support for Israel's destruction of Gaza. If there is a global war coming, our actions today may already influence the outcome.
Are we supposed to 'support' Hamas destroying Israel?
I've said for ages that it'll be Nov 14th, called from (or, technically, immediately after), the Tory conference.
April or May is hard because of the polls. Why lose now when you can not lose now. June / early July will be impossible after the local elections. The summer holidays is impossible for practical reasons. September is also impossible because you'd have to call it, and campaign, in the same summer holidays. December means a month of faffing about in Westminster after the conferences, to no useful end. January is even more faffing, plus disrupting the election with Xmas / NY, to media, public (and activist) annoyance.
So Oct / Nov is the only window that makes sense.
The argument for October is that it's lighter, doesn't get disrupted at the end with the uncertainties of a Trump win or uncertain result in America, and doesn't give the opposition a parliamentary bite at the cherry.
The argument for November is that the Tory conference is the last decent chance the Tories have to set the narrative largely on their own initiative.
Of the two, I'd favour November but Oct is perhaps the value bet.
“ called from (or, technically, immediately after), the Tory conference.”
What about the argument, last years conference was such a mess Tories started to fall in the polls after it, largely because of it.
This years conference season is anniversary of Trussterfuck, and of Sunak taking over. 🫣 It also gives Labour and libdems all the bounce from their conferences too, and the whole point of waiting till the conference would be to try to out bounce the other parties.
Tories would probably get a better election result avoiding another conference.
And hence the ingenious torture of the position the Conservatives have ended up in.
They probably get their best result (for which read, least bad defeat) from a May election.
The current Conservative leadership can buy itself another six months or so in office by sacrificing 30? 50? 100? more seats in the coming bloodbath.
Any attempt to change that situation has a decent chance of making things worse.
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.
No-one will put value on anything where AI replaces human creativity, as opposed to doing useful things that humans aren't especially good at.
But humans produce a lot of low value boiler plate content right now that is being replaced by AI, reducing its perceived value further.
I've said for ages that it'll be Nov 14th, called from (or, technically, immediately after), the Tory conference.
April or May is hard because of the polls. Why lose now when you can not lose now. June / early July will be impossible after the local elections. The summer holidays is impossible for practical reasons. September is also impossible because you'd have to call it, and campaign, in the same summer holidays. December means a month of faffing about in Westminster after the conferences, to no useful end. January is even more faffing, plus disrupting the election with Xmas / NY, to media, public (and activist) annoyance.
So Oct / Nov is the only window that makes sense.
The argument for October is that it's lighter, doesn't get disrupted at the end with the uncertainties of a Trump win or uncertain result in America, and doesn't give the opposition a parliamentary bite at the cherry.
The argument for November is that the Tory conference is the last decent chance the Tories have to set the narrative largely on their own initiative.
Of the two, I'd favour November but Oct is perhaps the value bet.
“ called from (or, technically, immediately after), the Tory conference.”
What about the argument, last years conference was such a mess Tories started to fall in the polls after it, largely because of it.
This years conference season is anniversary of Trussterfuck, and of Sunak taking over. 🫣 It also gives Labour and libdems all the bounce from their conferences too, and the whole point of waiting till the conference would be to try to out bounce the other parties.
Tories would probably get a better election result avoiding another conference.
My impression of the polling around the conference was that Sunak's Net Zero handbrake had actually managed to create a polling recovery noticeable beyond MOE. He then spent the conference banning smoking, announcing the cancellation of HS2 at the very end of the conference so nobody else could speak about it, re-announcing his other shite policies like maths till 18, and generally being all kinds of useless, so things went back to their sludgy decline.
"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."
The story yesterday was that Operation Sparrow was kept from the government who, incidentally, is also the owner of the business and the only shareholder. That seemed a remarkably brave thing for the incumbent management to do. This version makes more sense but is even more appalling. Next time anyone claims that public ownership is somehow morally better they really need to think about this. What it amounts to is the government making a decision to defraud small business people of their money and, even more unacceptably, lock them up rather than admit a series of mistakes. Shameful doesn't quite cover it.
That public ownership does not make an organisation or the people in it morally better should have been obvious from the way the NCB and the government behaved over Aberfan - not just in the events leading up to it - but in the decades following.
Or look at the various scandals in numerous NHS trusts.
I will repeat what I have been banging on about for bloody ages -
"The issue is not ownership. It is how government entities are governed, controlled and kept up to high professional standards. It is how governments avoid creating conflicts of interest or manage them properly, if unavoidable. It is how their Boards and managers are made meaningfully accountable."
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.
It's really nothing to do with anything the UK does, its simply which target the lying propaganda of the Putin regime chooses to target. The two minutes hate of vermin like Solvyev or Simonyan just acts as a Greek chorus for Peskov's daily list. No-one believes a word, but that's dictatorship for you.
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.
We can see from Ukraine that a big war requires big numbers of people.
I also see uneasy parallels between the situation now and the situation in Europe in 1936-1938. A lot of people, for good and bad reasons, saying that a big war is impossible, because it would be mad. And a few people warning that a big war is possible being called 'warmongers', even though they were proved correct.
The parallels cannot be extended too far, but the idea that another great war is impossible is becoming increasingly unsupportable.
Between who and who? Us, the US (insofar as it remains engaged with the world), Western Europe and other Anglo nations against Russia, Iran and China, I guess. But what of the other medium powers - Brazil, India, the Arab countries, etc? There is a risk that we are driving them into the arms of our enemies with, for example, our support for Israel's destruction of Gaza. If there is a global war coming, our actions today may already influence the outcome.
Are we supposed to 'support' Hamas destroying Israel?
No, of course not. If Hamas had destroyed half the buildings and 1% of the population of Israel in the name of "self-defence" we'd all, quite rightly, be aghast.
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.
We can see from Ukraine that a big war requires big numbers of people.
I also see uneasy parallels between the situation now and the situation in Europe in 1936-1938. A lot of people, for good and bad reasons, saying that a big war is impossible, because it would be mad. And a few people warning that a big war is possible being called 'warmongers', even though they were proved correct.
The parallels cannot be extended too far, but the idea that another great war is impossible is becoming increasingly unsupportable.
Your thoughts seem pretty simplistic.
But if you like simplistic thinking based on "numbers of people", you should console yourself with some population numbers: Russia: 143m Ukraine (currently deadlocked with Russia): 44m European Union: 448m USA: 332m
I've made exactly the same point before: Russia's economy is very poor compared to their potential rivals - even taking PPP etc into account. But I'm unconvinced my thinking is 'simplistic'.
But - and this is important - they may think that they can win in a non-military way. Russia is willing to throw hundreds of thousands of its people into war in order to get victory. Will we be willing to send hundreds of thousands of our people to protect Ukraine? Poland? The Baltics? France? Sweden?
Then there are Russian (and other...) efforts in the rest of the world, where their propaganda might be having some effect.
Will bad actors be able to 'win' because we aren't willing to defend our own values and lifestyles, if not those of our friends? We're sending all the messages that we don't want to defend those values.
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.
I couldn't read it, but did he advocate the Churchillian direction of older people into munitions factory work, perhaps somewhere like ROF Caerwent, Newport or Wrecsam, or the factories on Clydeside?
Not much risk of being ordered to go down the coal mines, mind.
He'd be liable for ARP, fire service or police work though.
Caerwent, I believe is still going, the ROF in Caerphilly Road, Cardiff is now a Lidl and ROF Pembrey, a country park.
I'm happy to dig for Britain. Johnson wouldn't know one end of a fork from the other, and would you really let him loose in a munitions factory?
Sean Kirkpatrick made the claim in a podcast this week after stepping down last month as the first director of the defense department’s all-domain anomaly resolution office (Aaro). It was set up in 2022 to collate military reports of UAP sightings and to be more transparent about what the government knows...
Comments
I also see uneasy parallels between the situation now and the situation in Europe in 1936-1938. A lot of people, for good and bad reasons, saying that a big war is impossible, because it would be mad. And a few people warning that a big war is possible being called 'warmongers', even though they were proved correct.
The parallels cannot be extended too far, but the idea that another great war is impossible is becoming increasingly unsupportable.
Not much risk of being ordered to go down the coal mines, mind.
He'd be liable for ARP, fire service or police work though.
It worked okay last time, in December I think. There was no lesson to learn to say we can’t do winter months was there?
No one packs it in and hibernates through the winter in this country, we just turn lights on and carry on. If you can go to work or shopping or cinema or pub, you can have an election. If knocking on doors is a bit harder, the trade off could be more people following it on telly than election in summer month?
I don’t think dark and bad weather is much of a consideration to the date, It’s still a bit autumnal this side of Christmas - the number 1 consideration to have an election in October, November or later, is can you control the news narrative in the build up and during it? where the Tories would like the focus on Sir Beer Korma and his wait and see manifesto, they need beware of boat crossings, economic news, migration figures, the covid enquiry reporting, as backdrop to their ‘we’ve turned the corner’ campaign.
"Dad's Army": What Was The Military Career of Lance Corporal Jones?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL_F3E973bU
Another advantage of having been infected early was I became a much safer person to others so was able to help out a few oldies without having to worry about potentially infecting them.
But if you like simplistic thinking based on "numbers of people", you should console yourself with some population numbers:
Russia: 143m
Ukraine (currently deadlocked with Russia): 44m
European Union: 448m
USA: 332m
What about the argument, last years conference was such a mess Tories started to fall in the polls after it, largely because of it.
This years conference season is anniversary of Trussterfuck, and of Sunak taking over. 🫣 It also gives Labour and libdems all the bounce from their conferences too, and the whole point of waiting till the conference would be to try to out bounce the other parties.
Tories would probably get a better election result avoiding another conference.
They probably get their best result (for which read, least bad defeat) from a May election.
The current Conservative leadership can buy itself another six months or so in office by sacrificing 30? 50? 100? more seats in the coming bloodbath.
Any attempt to change that situation has a decent chance of making things worse.
Ingenious torture.
But humans produce a lot of low value boiler plate content right now that is being replaced by AI, reducing its perceived value further.
https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/the-price-of-indifference/
Or look at the various scandals in numerous NHS trusts.
I will repeat what I have been banging on about for bloody ages -
"The issue is not ownership. It is how government entities are governed, controlled and kept up to high professional standards. It is how governments avoid creating conflicts of interest or manage them properly, if unavoidable. It is how their Boards and managers are made meaningfully accountable."
https://www.cyclefree.co.uk/what-are-ministers-for/
This doesn't just apply to the Post Office. It applies to everything the government does.
But - and this is important - they may think that they can win in a non-military way. Russia is willing to throw hundreds of thousands of its people into war in order to get victory. Will we be willing to send hundreds of thousands of our people to protect Ukraine? Poland? The Baltics? France? Sweden?
Then there are Russian (and other...) efforts in the rest of the world, where their propaganda might be having some effect.
Will bad actors be able to 'win' because we aren't willing to defend our own values and lifestyles, if not those of our friends? We're sending all the messages that we don't want to defend those values.
I'm happy to dig for Britain. Johnson wouldn't know one end of a fork from the other, and would you really let him loose in a munitions factory?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/27/sean-kirkpatrick-pentagon-ufo-conspiracy-theory-myths
Conspiracy theorists working for and within the US government are perpetuating myths about UFOs that millions of taxpayer dollars are then spent looking into, a “self-licking ice cream cone”, according to the Pentagon’s former chief investigator of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).
Sean Kirkpatrick made the claim in a podcast this week after stepping down last month as the first director of the defense department’s all-domain anomaly resolution office (Aaro). It was set up in 2022 to collate military reports of UAP sightings and to be more transparent about what the government knows...