Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
When we were doing the rounds with our son we went to LSE where a truly inspirational Maths/finance lecturer came seriously close to stealing his heart. He said, "when you go to University, choose something you love. You have the rest of your life to be bored."
It was spot on advice and made me, once again, regret my dull, pragmatic, choice of law.
It sounds to me that you have had a very interesting career in Law, as interesting as mine in Medicine.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
That is certainly the best part of it. I also like believing I can make a difference. The complainer in last week's rape trial reached out to say that the conviction will change her life. That sort of thing really gives you a boost. I am sure medicine gives many similar boosts.
But I am much more fascinated by economics than I ever was by law and would have loved to study economic history. When I retire that is certainly my plan for a second degree. My mind might struggle more with the maths these days but hopefully wide reading and life experience will offset that.
I am seriously considering studying African 20th Century history and economics to keep me interested in retirement. Of any useful purpose? Almost certainly not, but fascinating, and I love Africa.
Great idea
There should be a lot more OAPs/retired doing degree courses in subjects of no practical use to them, but to broaden their horizons/further their knowledge. I think this would be a great thing, both for the individual who keeps their mind stimulated instead of just watching daytime tv, and society overall
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Blimey. My colleagues in the woke lefty brainwashing academic cabal (Brighton branch) did a shit job then, didn't they?
We will look for learnings and endeavour to do better!
Surely, the cabal will mark your colleagues cards, and they will disappear while ordering in a pizza restaurant?
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
Probably about 25% of US GDP per head. China's economy is now slowing sharply, and the population is falling. The US's population is increasing quite fast, so at some point, total US GDP is likely to move back ahead of Chinese.
25% having adjusted for PPP, you mean? Real terms?
Income in China varies tremendously by region (much more than the USA)
A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American (and there are maybe 100m or 200m Chinese people like this)
The further west you go, the further inland, the poorer it gets, much poorer than anywhere in the USA, even Mississippi
Yes I'd have thought the poorest Chinese were still poorer than the poorest Americans.
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
I don't think Leon is right:
China's richest region per capita:
Beijing GDP US$28,294 PPP US$47,154
China's poorest Gansu US$6,686 / PPP US$11,142
UK (2018) GDP per cap: Highest: Inner London – West US $244,789 2nd: Inner London - East US $67,300 Lowest: Southern Scotland $25,500
USA
Highest State / DC DC $259,938
4 States all above $100k (NY, MA, CA, WA) Lowest Mississippi $49,911
Per head there's a fair gap between China and the UK and ourselves and the USA.
China's strength stems from the fact they've got 1.4 billion people more than anything (Yes it'll go down, but it'll take a while).
I can see my action items for today are not going to get done. I'm watching deer in my garden. This is the first time in a while. We used to get a regular visitor but one day he turned up with a head wound full of green bottles and maggots and he was so docile he let me catch him. I sat with him for a couple of hours waiting for a deer charity to turn up, but on inspection of the wound they shot him.
Sorry that went from joyous to sad.
LOL very funny. I have had, on various facebook groups, people asking where they should take a wounded pigeon that they have found in their garden.
Funny? A pigeon I would dispatch with a blow to the head and leave for the foxes, but a deer? You would leave it to suffer for days rather than getting it treated or destroyed humanely. It has no predators here to dispatch it quickly. I can't believe you would be that cruel when there is something you can do about it.
Bloody hell, calm down sugartits. I thought your story was funny and then I segued into my own story which I thought was also funny.
Or to help you with comprehension:
I thought your story was funny. I have a story which I think is funny.
Isn't comprehension useful when contributing to and reading posts on PB.
Sorry if I completely misinterpreted @TOPPING although I don't understand what was funny in my post. It wasn't meant to be.
I think it was a heart of stone not to laugh moment.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
When we were doing the rounds with our son we went to LSE where a truly inspirational Maths/finance lecturer came seriously close to stealing his heart. He said, "when you go to University, choose something you love. You have the rest of your life to be bored."
It was spot on advice and made me, once again, regret my dull, pragmatic, choice of law.
It sounds to me that you have had a very interesting career in Law, as interesting as mine in Medicine.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
That is certainly the best part of it. I also like believing I can make a difference. The complainer in last week's rape trial reached out to say that the conviction will change her life. That sort of thing really gives you a boost. I am sure medicine gives many similar boosts.
But I am much more fascinated by economics than I ever was by law and would have loved to study economic history. When I retire that is certainly my plan for a second degree. My mind might struggle more with the maths these days but hopefully wide reading and life experience will offset that.
I am seriously considering studying African 20th Century history and economics to keep me interested in retirement. Of any useful purpose? Almost certainly not, but fascinating, and I love Africa.
Great idea
There should be a lot more OAPs/retired doing degree courses in subjects of no practical use to them, but to broaden their horizons/further their knowledge. I think this would be a great thing, both for the individual who keeps their mind stimulated instead of just watching daytime tv, and society overall
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Wasn't that analogous to the journey that Bjorn Lomborg made - started out by looking into the stats for climate change to confirm all the hoo-ha about it and ended up sceptical of many of the claims being made.
Yes, and he turned out to be entirely wrong in his own predictions. His predictions about the costs of renewable energy from a decade back are now just risible.
What did he say and what happened.
Not surprised at all that predictions about a decade hence are wrong. Glad to see you appreciate how difficult predicting the future is.
Especially so when, like Lomberg, you have a poor understanding of the underlying issues and instead rely completely on naive statistical analysis and extrapolation.
Didn't he agree with Stern, with the exception, rightly imo, of not using a 0% intergenerational cost of capital.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
I know degrees have changed a lot since my time when the content of most were useless in one's career, but maybe they should be thinking that way. Do the degree because of the challenge, life experience etc and that just having a degree helps you get a job even if the content is irrelevant. The maths I did in my degree had no relevance to any job, but it was a gateway to a job because people thought you must be ok if you were able to do maths at that level (little did they know).
And as far as being doomed that nearly always exists in some form or other. In my day the world was about to be annihilated by the bomb and we were just about to run out of oil, so why bother. As you have probably noticed neither happened.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
I know degrees have changed a lot since my time when the content of most were useless in one's career, but maybe they should be thinking that way. Do the degree because of the challenge, life experience etc and that just having a degree helps you get a job even if the content is irrelevant. The maths I did in my degree had no relevance to any job, but it was a gateway to a job because people thought you must be ok if you were able to do maths at that level (little did they know).
And as far as being doomed that nearly always exists in some form or other. In my day the world was about to be annihilated by the bomb and we were just about to run out of oil, so why bother. As you have probably noticed neither happened.
Actually, the Trans Gay Illegal Immigrant Alien AIs took over, and you are just a character in a simulation they are running. Sorry.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
Probably about 25% of US GDP per head. China's economy is now slowing sharply, and the population is falling. The US's population is increasing quite fast, so at some point, total US GDP is likely to move back ahead of Chinese.
25% having adjusted for PPP, you mean? Real terms?
Income in China varies tremendously by region (much more than the USA)
A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American (and there are maybe 100m or 200m Chinese people like this)
The further west you go, the further inland, the poorer it gets, much poorer than anywhere in the USA, even Mississippi
Yes I'd have thought the poorest Chinese were still poorer than the poorest Americans.
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
I don't think Leon is right:
China's richest region per capita:
Beijing GDP US$28,294 PPP US$47,154
China's poorest Gansu US$6,686 / PPP US$11,142
UK (2018) GDP per cap: Highest: Inner London – West US $244,789 2nd: Inner London - East US $67,300 Lowest: Southern Scotland $25,500
USA
Highest State / DC DC $259,938
4 States all above $100k (NY, MA, CA, WA) Lowest Mississippi $49,911
Per head there's a fair gap between China and the UK and ourselves and the USA.
China's strength stems from the fact they've got 1.4 billion people more than anything (Yes it'll go down, but it'll take a while).
Don't foget Hong Kong is now part of China: $56k
Also, my point was not the numbers, which is why I specifically avoided saying that, my point was "A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American"
And they do
And this is where PPP comes in. In nomimal terms Yanks are apparently way richer than even the rich Chinese, but when you visit both countries you see this isn't really true in terms of lifestyle/ Yes Americans are still richer but middle class Chinese own cars, houses, have nice jobs in big gleaming cities, they aren't SO far apart - because everything is so much cheaper in China
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
See also
Covid is coming
It came from the lab
Ukraine is not winning the war, and will not reach the Azov Sea
Putin is close to nukes (he was)
America is going mad about UFOs, whether they exist or not (they did go mad, indeed still are)
That bomb on the bridge? It was a lorry
And on and on, and, best of all, my most titanic achievement in the history of geopolitics: THE NECKLACE
Most of those are *very* debatable, at best.
Also Nordstream. It wasn't Putin, FFS. He gained nothing from it
It was probably Ukraine with some help from others (Poland? Baltics? UK?) and the prior approval and possible assistance at a distance of the Americans
PB's weird attachment to the Putin Did It theory of Nordstream was quite bizarrre
Denmark and Sweden have now both officially concluded their investigations into Nordstream, and they have concluded, "Ooops, it's a big mystery, we will never know"
What does that tell you? It tells you this:
"And who blew it up?
As Denmark and Sweden have just formally ended their investigation without any information on the likely culprit, options get gravely limited. The culprit is almost certainly an ally, and definitely not Russia. #NordStream"
As you would realise if you weren't so gullible/lazy/dishonest (or all three), the last video you linked to is clipped from a discussion about sanctions (even the clip you link to ends with Johnson talking about hoping the senate would 'take up legislation')
I mean, the Americans actually BOASTED they were gonna blow it up
I give up. I think if Joe Biden came round to your house with a chunk of the exploded Nordstream pipeline in his hand and a handmade movie of him planting the bomb on the Nordstream pipeline and the signed affidavits of 17,000 submersible Catholic nuns who went under the waves also saw him do it, and who also filmed it on Vatican iphones,.."
It would be one of your AI deepfakes.
That is actually quite a profound point
In a year or less so many of these vids will become plausibly deniable. Scary
Verifiable truth will not exist
I read a little comment from someone who works in US political campaigning that they weren't so much worried about bad/evil deepfakes, they were worried that voters would prefer them to the actual candidates.
Just noting that Galloway received fewer votes than did the second placed Tory candidate at the last general election.
Massive popular mandate it is not.
That kind of analysis didn’t go down well after the two by elections Labour won recently
Did anyone claim Labour had won some sort of massive mandate at them ?
As Galloway just did.
I can’t remember what Labour supporters said, they must have made some claim or other. But when I noted that they had received 5,000 votes less than at the GE in one of them, and added 100 in the other, whereas Blair’s party in 1996 was piling on thousands of new votes in by elections, it didn’t go down well
Didn't bother me. But they were likely of slightly more predictive value than is Rochdale.
Let's see what happens to Galloway at the next election, shall we ?
The result is not necessarily bad news for Labour. What it should have done though is set off a fire alarm in Labour HQ. Much better to have a working fire alarm than a faulty one, if you react in time to the warning.
The damage from the result itself is limited. As someone commented down thread Starmer has in some ways already dodged a bullet, because it looks likely that GG would have won even if Labour had run a decent campaign with a decent candidate. As it is, GG winning a seat in which Labour had urged its supporters to stay at home is far less embarrassing.
How things play out now depends on what lessons Starmer takes in response to the warning, that is whether or not Labour belatedly adopts a line that is unequivocably critical of the actions of the current Israeli government going forward. Whether Starmer has the political nous to appreciate the need for that is questionable though, because his approach to Gaza to date has been remarkably cloth-eared.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
See also
Covid is coming
It came from the lab
Ukraine is not winning the war, and will not reach the Azov Sea
Putin is close to nukes (he was)
America is going mad about UFOs, whether they exist or not (they did go mad, indeed still are)
That bomb on the bridge? It was a lorry
And on and on, and, best of all, my most titanic achievement in the history of geopolitics: THE NECKLACE
Most of those are *very* debatable, at best.
Also Nordstream. It wasn't Putin, FFS. He gained nothing from it
It was probably Ukraine with some help from others (Poland? Baltics? UK?) and the prior approval and possible assistance at a distance of the Americans
PB's weird attachment to the Putin Did It theory of Nordstream was quite bizarrre
Denmark and Sweden have now both officially concluded their investigations into Nordstream, and they have concluded, "Ooops, it's a big mystery, we will never know"
What does that tell you? It tells you this:
"And who blew it up?
As Denmark and Sweden have just formally ended their investigation without any information on the likely culprit, options get gravely limited. The culprit is almost certainly an ally, and definitely not Russia. #NordStream"
As you would realise if you weren't so gullible/lazy/dishonest (or all three), the last video you linked to is clipped from a discussion about sanctions (even the clip you link to ends with Johnson talking about hoping the senate would 'take up legislation')
I mean, the Americans actually BOASTED they were gonna blow it up
I give up. I think if Joe Biden came round to your house with a chunk of the exploded Nordstream pipeline in his hand and a handmade movie of him planting the bomb on the Nordstream pipeline and the signed affidavits of 17,000 submersible Catholic nuns who went under the waves also saw him do it, and who also filmed it on Vatican iphones,.."
It would be one of your AI deepfakes.
That is actually quite a profound point
In a year or less so many of these vids will become plausibly deniable. Scary
Verifiable truth will not exist
I read a little comment from someone who works in US political campaigning that they weren't so much worried about bad/evil deepfakes, they were worried that voters would prefer them to the actual candidates.
Made in jest, but all the same...
And then add in that New York Times quiz which shows that people think fake AI facial photos are more real than real photos
So, yes, it becomes quite conceivable that we will prefer Deepfake Politicians who don't exist but look good and say the right things
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
Well, if they believe it's all going to shit, then spending three or more years sleeping late, getting drunk/stoned etc and having lots of sex doesn't seem like the worst idea. And if the AIs to wipe us all out then they won't even have to repay the student loans.
But, seriously. The experience is good. It widens horizons. It makes contacts. Whatever comes, being better educated is not going to be a bad thing. Unless our new AI overlords decide the Khmer Rouge had it right
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
Probably about 25% of US GDP per head. China's economy is now slowing sharply, and the population is falling. The US's population is increasing quite fast, so at some point, total US GDP is likely to move back ahead of Chinese.
25% having adjusted for PPP, you mean? Real terms?
Income in China varies tremendously by region (much more than the USA)
A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American (and there are maybe 100m or 200m Chinese people like this)
The further west you go, the further inland, the poorer it gets, much poorer than anywhere in the USA, even Mississippi
Yes I'd have thought the poorest Chinese were still poorer than the poorest Americans.
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
I don't think Leon is right:
China's richest region per capita:
Beijing GDP US$28,294 PPP US$47,154
China's poorest Gansu US$6,686 / PPP US$11,142
UK (2018) GDP per cap: Highest: Inner London – West US $244,789 2nd: Inner London - East US $67,300 Lowest: Southern Scotland $25,500
USA
Highest State / DC DC $259,938
4 States all above $100k (NY, MA, CA, WA) Lowest Mississippi $49,911
Per head there's a fair gap between China and the UK and ourselves and the USA.
China's strength stems from the fact they've got 1.4 billion people more than anything (Yes it'll go down, but it'll take a while).
Don't foget Hong Kong is now part of China: $56k
Also, my point was not the numbers, which is why I specifically avoided saying that, my point was "A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American"
And they do
And this is where PPP comes in. In nomimal terms Yanks are apparently way richer than even the rich Chinese, but when you visit both countries you see this isn't really true in terms of lifestyle/ Yes Americans are still richer but middle class Chinese own cars, houses, have nice jobs in big gleaming cities, they aren't SO far apart - because everything is so much cheaper in China
I'll have to go back to China at some point if possible, journeyed through it by train back in 2003. Perhaps Yunnan.
Just noting that Galloway received fewer votes than did the second placed Tory candidate at the last general election.
Massive popular mandate it is not.
That kind of analysis didn’t go down well after the two by elections Labour won recently
Did anyone claim Labour had won some sort of massive mandate at them ?
As Galloway just did.
I can’t remember what Labour supporters said, they must have made some claim or other. But when I noted that they had received 5,000 votes less than at the GE in one of them, and added 100 in the other, whereas Blair’s party in 1996 was piling on thousands of new votes in by elections, it didn’t go down well
Didn't bother me. But they were likely of slightly more predictive value than is Rochdale.
Let's see what happens to Galloway at the next election, shall we ?
The result is not necessarily bad news for Labour. What it should have done though is set off a fire alarm in Labour HQ. Much better to have a working fire alarm than a faulty one, if you react in time to the warning.
The damage from the result itself is limited. As someone commented down thread Starmer has in some ways already dodged a bullet, because it looks likely that GG would have won even if Labour had run a decent campaign with a decent candidate. As it is, GG winning a seat in which Labour had urged its supporters to stay at home is far less embarrassing.
How things play out now depends on what lessons Starmer takes in response to the warning, that is whether or not Labour belatedly adopts a line that is unequivocably critical of the actions of the current Israeli government going forward. Whether Starmer has the political nous to appreciate the need for that is questionable though, because his approach to Gaza to date has been remarkably cloth-eared.
Have I got your premise right - Lab's (only?) chance at the next UK General Election depends upon making the correct call about what is happening in Gaza. 2,226 miles away.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
When we were doing the rounds with our son we went to LSE where a truly inspirational Maths/finance lecturer came seriously close to stealing his heart. He said, "when you go to University, choose something you love. You have the rest of your life to be bored."
It was spot on advice and made me, once again, regret my dull, pragmatic, choice of law.
It sounds to me that you have had a very interesting career in Law, as interesting as mine in Medicine.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
That is certainly the best part of it. I also like believing I can make a difference. The complainer in last week's rape trial reached out to say that the conviction will change her life. That sort of thing really gives you a boost. I am sure medicine gives many similar boosts.
But I am much more fascinated by economics than I ever was by law and would have loved to study economic history. When I retire that is certainly my plan for a second degree. My mind might struggle more with the maths these days but hopefully wide reading and life experience will offset that.
I am seriously considering studying African 20th Century history and economics to keep me interested in retirement. Of any useful purpose? Almost certainly not, but fascinating, and I love Africa.
Great idea
There should be a lot more OAPs/retired doing degree courses in subjects of no practical use to them, but to broaden their horizons/further their knowledge. I think this would be a great thing, both for the individual who keeps their mind stimulated instead of just watching daytime tv, and society overall
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Blimey. My colleagues in the woke lefty brainwashing academic cabal (Brighton branch) did a shit job then, didn't they?
We will look for learnings and endeavour to do better!
The bloke I worked for in Brighton called it ‘The Communist Factory’!
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
Probably about 25% of US GDP per head. China's economy is now slowing sharply, and the population is falling. The US's population is increasing quite fast, so at some point, total US GDP is likely to move back ahead of Chinese.
25% having adjusted for PPP, you mean? Real terms?
Income in China varies tremendously by region (much more than the USA)
A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American (and there are maybe 100m or 200m Chinese people like this)
The further west you go, the further inland, the poorer it gets, much poorer than anywhere in the USA, even Mississippi
Yes I'd have thought the poorest Chinese were still poorer than the poorest Americans.
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
I don't think Leon is right:
China's richest region per capita:
Beijing GDP US$28,294 PPP US$47,154
China's poorest Gansu US$6,686 / PPP US$11,142
UK (2018) GDP per cap: Highest: Inner London – West US $244,789 2nd: Inner London - East US $67,300 Lowest: Southern Scotland $25,500
USA
Highest State / DC DC $259,938
4 States all above $100k (NY, MA, CA, WA) Lowest Mississippi $49,911
Per head there's a fair gap between China and the UK and ourselves and the USA.
China's strength stems from the fact they've got 1.4 billion people more than anything (Yes it'll go down, but it'll take a while).
Don't foget Hong Kong is now part of China: $56k
Also, my point was not the numbers, which is why I specifically avoided saying that, my point was "A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American"
And they do
And this is where PPP comes in. In nomimal terms Yanks are apparently way richer than even the rich Chinese, but when you visit both countries you see this isn't really true in terms of lifestyle/ Yes Americans are still richer but middle class Chinese own cars, houses, have nice jobs in big gleaming cities, they aren't SO far apart - because everything is so much cheaper in China
I'll have to go back to China at some point if possible, journeyed through it by train back in 2003. Perhaps Yunnan.
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Congratulations to your daughter. I agree with you, she should do the course that she's most excited by, she'll have a better time and get a better degree. The labour market is so uncertain I think it makes less sense than it did before to try to tailor your degree to make yourself more employable. I hope she gets the grades to take up her preferred choice - my eldest daughter is also doing A levels in May/June then heading to Uni. Fingers crossed for all of them. Being young right now isn't easy, but they're doing a great job of it in the main.
Being 17-18 is always hard, if exciting, but this present cohort have it incredibly hard. I read an impassioned, eloquent reddit essay by a very bright 18 year old the other day. He is facing the same dilemma as my older daughter, he believes his chosen career is deeply menaced by AI and will not exist in a decade, he confessed to deep depression, and it was not hard to understand why
And so many areas of human life are gonne be impacted, it's not just a few white collar jobs, it is millions and millions of jobs, from call centre workers to accountants and laywers and bankers, to aspiring actors, writers, musicians - almost anyone
What the F are we all gonna do?!
Well, if they believe it's all going to shit, then spending three or more years sleeping late, getting drunk/stoned etc and having lots of sex doesn't seem like the worst idea. And if the AIs to wipe us all out then they won't even have to repay the student loans.
But, seriously. The experience is good. It widens horizons. It makes contacts. Whatever comes, being better educated is not going to be a bad thing. Unless our new AI overlords decide the Khmer Rouge had it right
Except that these days you take on an awful lot of debt to get what may well be a worthless degree, getting ever more worthless by the day as AI takes over
Jeez, my generation had it so easy. They PAID us to go to Uni, and then all I did was loaf about, do drugs, have (some) sex (not enough, that came later), do more drugs, go to parties, have a blast, make friends for life, and I was PAID to do this. Insane
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Adnams pubs won't take cash, on the other hand my barber and our dog groomer only take cash and remembering to take cash out for both is a pain I must admit. I avoid using cash, but I will admit to being caught out.
A truly terrible day for any democrat who believes parliamentary democracy is about healing divisions, not stoking division and exploiting division for self greed and personal delectations.
And I called it utterly wrong, I misled you and I apologise for it.
I was wrong to such an extent, i now analyse from the collapse of Ali’s support, if long time Labour moderate and fighter of anti semitism in Muslim communities Ali, had not pushed his horrid conspiracy theory about Netanyahu’s government at that crazy meeting with quitting councillors, and remained Labour candidate, I suspect he still would have lost to Galloway anyway.
I agree with TSE. If Tories, with splendid record of learning wrong thing from by elections, seek a May election to exploit Labours heat over the Gaza Duck shoot - how exactly does Netanyahu and his supporters kill the ideas and ideology of Hamas simply by slaughtering people? The very fundamental thing wrong in the Hamas attack on Israel is now showing up in Israel’s response is it not - this is not the thing to try and exploit for a General Election win. There are many good reasons for a May election, looking at expert modelling and media narrative for summer and Autumn, not least the explosion in boat crossings from July blowing the Conservative Party into lots of little pieces. But exploiting Labours - like Jo Biden’s - real electoral difficulties over horror in the Middle East is not one of them.
Looking for positives, Labour do now have a clear hare in Rochdale to chase down and rip to shreds on GE night. The General Election will be different psychology - much like Tories are courting Reform with “a vote for reform let’s in Starmer” Labour will squeeze minor parties and supporters of independents with “you will let in 5 more years of Sunak.”
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
Probably about 25% of US GDP per head. China's economy is now slowing sharply, and the population is falling. The US's population is increasing quite fast, so at some point, total US GDP is likely to move back ahead of Chinese.
25% having adjusted for PPP, you mean? Real terms?
Income in China varies tremendously by region (much more than the USA)
A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American (and there are maybe 100m or 200m Chinese people like this)
The further west you go, the further inland, the poorer it gets, much poorer than anywhere in the USA, even Mississippi
Yes I'd have thought the poorest Chinese were still poorer than the poorest Americans.
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
I don't think Leon is right:
China's richest region per capita:
Beijing GDP US$28,294 PPP US$47,154
China's poorest Gansu US$6,686 / PPP US$11,142
UK (2018) GDP per cap: Highest: Inner London – West US $244,789 2nd: Inner London - East US $67,300 Lowest: Southern Scotland $25,500
USA
Highest State / DC DC $259,938
4 States all above $100k (NY, MA, CA, WA) Lowest Mississippi $49,911
Per head there's a fair gap between China and the UK and ourselves and the USA.
China's strength stems from the fact they've got 1.4 billion people more than anything (Yes it'll go down, but it'll take a while).
Don't foget Hong Kong is now part of China: $56k
Also, my point was not the numbers, which is why I specifically avoided saying that, my point was "A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American"
And they do
And this is where PPP comes in. In nomimal terms Yanks are apparently way richer than even the rich Chinese, but when you visit both countries you see this isn't really true in terms of lifestyle/ Yes Americans are still richer but middle class Chinese own cars, houses, have nice jobs in big gleaming cities, they aren't SO far apart - because everything is so much cheaper in China
I'll have to go back to China at some point if possible, journeyed through it by train back in 2003. Perhaps Yunnan.
If you haven't been since 2003 then yes, Wow, you will see astonishing changes
The high speed trains are phenonemal. Beijing to Shanghai. I LOVE Shanghai, it's a magnificent city, it is basically taking over from poor old Hong Kong
Just noting that Galloway received fewer votes than did the second placed Tory candidate at the last general election.
Massive popular mandate it is not.
That kind of analysis didn’t go down well after the two by elections Labour won recently
Did anyone claim Labour had won some sort of massive mandate at them ?
As Galloway just did.
I can’t remember what Labour supporters said, they must have made some claim or other. But when I noted that they had received 5,000 votes less than at the GE in one of them, and added 100 in the other, whereas Blair’s party in 1996 was piling on thousands of new votes in by elections, it didn’t go down well
Didn't bother me. But they were likely of slightly more predictive value than is Rochdale.
Let's see what happens to Galloway at the next election, shall we ?
The result is not necessarily bad news for Labour. What it should have done though is set off a fire alarm in Labour HQ. Much better to have a working fire alarm than a faulty one, if you react in time to the warning.
The damage from the result itself is limited. As someone commented down thread Starmer has in some ways already dodged a bullet, because it looks likely that GG would have won even if Labour had run a decent campaign with a decent candidate. As it is, GG winning a seat in which Labour had urged its supporters to stay at home is far less embarrassing.
How things play out now depends on what lessons Starmer takes in response to the warning, that is whether or not Labour belatedly adopts a line that is unequivocably critical of the actions of the current Israeli government going forward. Whether Starmer has the political nous to appreciate the need for that is questionable though, because his approach to Gaza to date has been remarkably cloth-eared.
Have I got your premise right - Lab's (only?) chance at the next UK General Election depends upon making the correct call about what is happening in Gaza. 2,226 miles away.
There is no politically possible correct call to be made. Centrist opinion has shifted away from the political/military leadership on all sides and supports good people of all backgrounds in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
There is no feasible policy this view can be turned into at the moment; there is no support for Israel's government or for Hamas among sane voters. The only UK politically possible option is to keep out as much as possible, support a cessation of hostilities and a two state solution (both currently impossible), and say that the UN (or anyone apart from us) should sort it out (currently impossible).
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
When we were doing the rounds with our son we went to LSE where a truly inspirational Maths/finance lecturer came seriously close to stealing his heart. He said, "when you go to University, choose something you love. You have the rest of your life to be bored."
It was spot on advice and made me, once again, regret my dull, pragmatic, choice of law.
It sounds to me that you have had a very interesting career in Law, as interesting as mine in Medicine.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
That is certainly the best part of it. I also like believing I can make a difference. The complainer in last week's rape trial reached out to say that the conviction will change her life. That sort of thing really gives you a boost. I am sure medicine gives many similar boosts.
But I am much more fascinated by economics than I ever was by law and would have loved to study economic history. When I retire that is certainly my plan for a second degree. My mind might struggle more with the maths these days but hopefully wide reading and life experience will offset that.
I am seriously considering studying African 20th Century history and economics to keep me interested in retirement. Of any useful purpose? Almost certainly not, but fascinating, and I love Africa.
Great idea
There should be a lot more OAPs/retired doing degree courses in subjects of no practical use to them, but to broaden their horizons/further their knowledge. I think this would be a great thing, both for the individual who keeps their mind stimulated instead of just watching daytime tv, and society overall
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Blimey. My colleagues in the woke lefty brainwashing academic cabal (Brighton branch) did a shit job then, didn't they?
We will look for learnings and endeavour to do better!
The bloke I worked for in Brighton called it ‘The Communist Factory’!
Hmm. Maybe they were laying it on a bit strong then. Subtlety is all.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Adnams pubs won't take cash, on the other hand my barber and our dog groomer only take cash and remembering to take cash out for both is a pain I must admit. I avoid using cash, but I will admit to being caught out.
I am pondering why your barber and dog groomer only accept cash. Help me out here.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Adnams pubs won't take cash, on the other hand my barber and our dog groomer only take cash and remembering to take cash out for both is a pain I must admit. I avoid using cash, but I will admit to being caught out.
I am pondering why your barber and dog groomer only accept cash. Help me out here.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
If you reserve a rail ticket on many corporate expense systems, it demands you insert your card if collecting tickets from a machine (travelcards are not issued as etickets yet for example). You can just tap and collect from a human being at the ticket office however (for now!).
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
If you reserve a rail ticket on many corporate expense systems, it demands you insert your card if collecting tickets from a machine (travelcards are not issued as etickets yet for example). You can just tap and collect from a human being at the ticket office however (for now!).
Are there any rail companies that aren't set up to allow e-tickets these days?
I know it was a bit hit and miss a few years ago - not all gatelines had scanners, so you sometimes had to queue to show someone your phone before being let through. But I've not experienced that for ages...
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I note what looks like a roughly 100 m2 currently cgi 4 bed detached is going for £570k... will people be able to afford that sort of price ?
Just noting that Galloway received fewer votes than did the second placed Tory candidate at the last general election.
Massive popular mandate it is not.
That kind of analysis didn’t go down well after the two by elections Labour won recently
Did anyone claim Labour had won some sort of massive mandate at them ?
As Galloway just did.
I can’t remember what Labour supporters said, they must have made some claim or other. But when I noted that they had received 5,000 votes less than at the GE in one of them, and added 100 in the other, whereas Blair’s party in 1996 was piling on thousands of new votes in by elections, it didn’t go down well
Didn't bother me. But they were likely of slightly more predictive value than is Rochdale.
Let's see what happens to Galloway at the next election, shall we ?
The result is not necessarily bad news for Labour. What it should have done though is set off a fire alarm in Labour HQ. Much better to have a working fire alarm than a faulty one, if you react in time to the warning.
The damage from the result itself is limited. As someone commented down thread Starmer has in some ways already dodged a bullet, because it looks likely that GG would have won even if Labour had run a decent campaign with a decent candidate. As it is, GG winning a seat in which Labour had urged its supporters to stay at home is far less embarrassing.
How things play out now depends on what lessons Starmer takes in response to the warning, that is whether or not Labour belatedly adopts a line that is unequivocably critical of the actions of the current Israeli government going forward. Whether Starmer has the political nous to appreciate the need for that is questionable though, because his approach to Gaza to date has been remarkably cloth-eared.
Have I got your premise right - Lab's (only?) chance at the next UK General Election depends upon making the correct call about what is happening in Gaza. 2,226 miles away.
There is no politically possible correct call to be made. Centrist opinion has shifted away from the political/military leadership on all sides and supports good people of all backgrounds in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
There is no feasible policy this view can be turned into at the moment; there is no support for Israel's government or for Hamas among sane voters. The only UK politically possible option is to keep out as much as possible, support a cessation of hostilities and a two state solution (both currently impossible), and say that the UN (or anyone apart from us) should sort it out (currently impossible).
That's my position. I don't get why the Left are so worked up about calling for a ceasefire as there is no evidence at all that Hamas wants one. If they did, they would simply release the hostages, point made. I can only imagine the aim of Hamas is to reduce Gaza to rubble and so far they are succeeding.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Adnams pubs won't take cash, on the other hand my barber and our dog groomer only take cash and remembering to take cash out for both is a pain I must admit. I avoid using cash, but I will admit to being caught out.
I am pondering why your barber and dog groomer only accept cash. Help me out here.
With the large numbers of barbers that have sprung up round our way recently (mostly "Turkish" although we do have a Kurdish one) the suspicion is they are used to launder drug money
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
Everywhere that takes card now takes ApplePay in my experience. That person needs an anger management course and treatment for Apple Derangement Syndrome.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
But contactless terminals have been the default for fifteen years, and are generally provided free of charge by the payments processors. Are these people using manual card imprinters from the 1980s?
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
If you reserve a rail ticket on many corporate expense systems, it demands you insert your card if collecting tickets from a machine (travelcards are not issued as etickets yet for example). You can just tap and collect from a human being at the ticket office however (for now!).
Are there any rail companies that aren't set up to allow e-tickets these days?
I know it was a bit hit and miss a few years ago - not all gatelines had scanners, so you sometimes had to queue to show someone your phone before being let through. But I've not experienced that for ages...
Nope. All QR codes nowadays so yet another Landfill Nostalgic Red Herring. I used a QR code phone ticket on the Settle to Carlisle recently.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Adnams pubs won't take cash, on the other hand my barber and our dog groomer only take cash and remembering to take cash out for both is a pain I must admit. I avoid using cash, but I will admit to being caught out.
I am pondering why your barber and dog groomer only accept cash. Help me out here.
Labour close to dropping to third behind Reform among the 65+ age group. Split is 37-28-26 (C-L-R) in that age group.
One of my carers remarked the other day that quite a few of their clients had GBNews on the TV.
So those whose whole f*cking lives have been transformed by the welfare state, universal state education, the nhs, public health, council housing, access to free university education, tons of goodies like warm homes money and on and on don't want the next generation to have any of it?
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Adnams pubs won't take cash, on the other hand my barber and our dog groomer only take cash and remembering to take cash out for both is a pain I must admit. I avoid using cash, but I will admit to being caught out.
I am pondering why your barber and dog groomer only accept cash. Help me out here.
With the large numbers of barbers that have sprung up round our way recently (mostly "Turkish" although we do have a Kurdish one) the suspicion is they are used to launder drug money
The 'traditional' barber where I get my locks shorn was remarking the other day that one rarely saw customers in the Turkish establishment that opened a couple of years ago in our small town.
Labour close to dropping to third behind Reform among the 65+ age group. Split is 37-28-26 (C-L-R) in that age group.
One of my carers remarked the other day that quite a few of their clients had GBNews on the TV.
So those whose whole f*cking lives have been transformed by the welfare state, universal state education, the nhs, public health, council housing, access to free university education, tons of goodies like warm homes money and on and on don't want the next generation to have any of it?
Jeez.
They'd like their grandkids to have it. Fuck everyone else's though.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
But contactless terminals have been the default for fifteen years, and are generally provided free of charge by the payments processors. Are these people using manual card imprinters from the 1980s?
The USA were very late to the game. I remember not too long ago listening to a podcast with a guy from a fairly tech bit of California who had visited friends in Canada and been absolutely amazed at how any type of tap-to-pay was just the default. Seems to be quite rapidly improving, but very dependent on the chain/store.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
See also
Covid is coming
It came from the lab
Ukraine is not winning the war, and will not reach the Azov Sea
Putin is close to nukes (he was)
America is going mad about UFOs, whether they exist or not (they did go mad, indeed still are)
That bomb on the bridge? It was a lorry
And on and on, and, best of all, my most titanic achievement in the history of geopolitics: THE NECKLACE
Most of those are *very* debatable, at best.
Also Nordstream. It wasn't Putin, FFS. He gained nothing from it
It was probably Ukraine with some help from others (Poland? Baltics? UK?) and the prior approval and possible assistance at a distance of the Americans
PB's weird attachment to the Putin Did It theory of Nordstream was quite bizarrre
Denmark and Sweden have now both officially concluded their investigations into Nordstream, and they have concluded, "Ooops, it's a big mystery, we will never know"
What does that tell you? It tells you this:
"And who blew it up?
As Denmark and Sweden have just formally ended their investigation without any information on the likely culprit, options get gravely limited. The culprit is almost certainly an ally, and definitely not Russia. #NordStream"
As you would realise if you weren't so gullible/lazy/dishonest (or all three), the last video you linked to is clipped from a discussion about sanctions (even the clip you link to ends with Johnson talking about hoping the senate would 'take up legislation')
I mean, the Americans actually BOASTED they were gonna blow it up
I give up. I think if Joe Biden came round to your house with a chunk of the exploded Nordstream pipeline in his hand and a handmade movie of him planting the bomb on the Nordstream pipeline and the signed affidavits of 17,000 submersible Catholic nuns who went under the waves also saw him do it, and who also filmed it on Vatican iphones,.."
It would be one of your AI deepfakes.
That is actually quite a profound point
In a year or less so many of these vids will become plausibly deniable. Scary
Labour close to dropping to third behind Reform among the 65+ age group. Split is 37-28-26 (C-L-R) in that age group.
One of my carers remarked the other day that quite a few of their clients had GBNews on the TV.
So those whose whole f*cking lives have been transformed by the welfare state, universal state education, the nhs, public health, council housing, access to free university education, tons of goodies like warm homes money and on and on don't want the next generation to have any of it?
Jeez.
I know. I don't understand it either. The carer, a young, politically aware, man is, I think, quite glad to find someone who sympathies with him.
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I note what looks like a roughly 100 m2 currently cgi 4 bed detached is going for £570k... will people be able to afford that sort of price ?
You'd probably want to be earning £190k or so between a couple to be comfortable with that I'd imagine.
Instructive that the pictures don't match the floorplan for interior - see e.g the kitchen/diner which is back to front and also otherwise inconsistent. You'd think it would be easy enough to get right.
Actually there's more - study, hall is a mirror image. They probably do have a mirror image variant too, but it's careless.
Labour close to dropping to third behind Reform among the 65+ age group. Split is 37-28-26 (C-L-R) in that age group.
One of my carers remarked the other day that quite a few of their clients had GBNews on the TV.
So those whose whole f*cking lives have been transformed by the welfare state, universal state education, the nhs, public health, council housing, access to free university education, tons of goodies like warm homes money and on and on don't want the next generation to have any of it?
Jeez.
They'd like their grandkids to have it. Fuck everyone else's though.
Sometimes they seem to see even their grandchildren as 'want it all's"
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
Some card issuers still do this, for Apple Pay as well.
Labour close to dropping to third behind Reform among the 65+ age group. Split is 37-28-26 (C-L-R) in that age group.
One of my carers remarked the other day that quite a few of their clients had GBNews on the TV.
So those whose whole f*cking lives have been transformed by the welfare state, universal state education, the nhs, public health, council housing, access to free university education, tons of goodies like warm homes money and on and on don't want the next generation to have any of it?
Jeez.
It’s time to tax the shit out of Werther’s Originals.
The 14% for Reform in the YouGov poll is another high for them this Parliament. Why do we think they did so poorly in Rochdale?
Simon Danczuk.
Also, to an extent, Galloway and Farage fish in the same pond (old ways are the best, rest of you should know your limits, bow down before your overlord and I will shower you with the goodies the bad people want to deny you). Much more obvious if you read the other targeted mailshot GG did.
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I note what looks like a roughly 100 m2 currently cgi 4 bed detached is going for £570k... will people be able to afford that sort of price ?
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Adnams pubs won't take cash, on the other hand my barber and our dog groomer only take cash and remembering to take cash out for both is a pain I must admit. I avoid using cash, but I will admit to being caught out.
I am pondering why your barber and dog groomer only accept cash. Help me out here.
Is it taxing your brain ?
It is.
P.S. 4G on the Central Line. OMG.
Yes we Khan!!!
I still can't read comments like '4G on the central line' without initially thinking that the trains have got much faster/quicker acceleration and/or the turns much tighter!
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
But contactless terminals have been the default for fifteen years, and are generally provided free of charge by the payments processors. Are these people using manual card imprinters from the 1980s?
The USA were very late to the game. I remember not too long ago listening to a podcast with a guy from a fairly tech bit of California who had visited friends in Canada and been absolutely amazed at how any type of tap-to-pay was just the default. Seems to be quite rapidly improving, but very dependent on the chain/store.
Ah, yes, I hadn't clocked that it was American.
The fascination with retro tech for anything to do with finance in the US is definitely a thing, and leads to all sorts of shonky workarounds like CashApp.
I have half a theory that some of the blame for this can be laid on IBM for not collapsing when the rest of the world's mainframe computer companies died off...
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
But contactless terminals have been the default for fifteen years, and are generally provided free of charge by the payments processors. Are these people using manual card imprinters from the 1980s?
The USA were very late to the game. I remember not too long ago listening to a podcast with a guy from a fairly tech bit of California who had visited friends in Canada and been absolutely amazed at how any type of tap-to-pay was just the default. Seems to be quite rapidly improving, but very dependent on the chain/store.
Ah, yes, I hadn't clocked that it was American.
The fascination with retro tech for anything to do with finance in the US is definitely a thing, and leads to all sorts of shonky workarounds like CashApp.
I have half a theory that some of the blame for this can be laid on IBM for not collapsing when the rest of the world's mainframe computer companies died off...
When I worked in an AltBank, the CEO and various board members got grilled my US politicians. Their plan for the American market was to offer an online account (via mobile) app for free, no overdraft, physical card for $10 (I think). Most services free - online payments etc. Open to anyone. So they went looking for a US banking license.
The US politicians couldn't understand how they weren't planning to gouge their poor customers somehow. That and they didn't want to undermine the local cooperative loans/banking things - which tend to be heavily linked with grass roots political activism.
So according to Yougov Reform is now doing better even than UKIP did in 2015
There was at least one YouGov poll that put UKIP on 19% in the 2010-15 Parliament, but they are polling notably well now even with Farage not all over the BBC.
Labour close to dropping to third behind Reform among the 65+ age group. Split is 37-28-26 (C-L-R) in that age group.
One of my carers remarked the other day that quite a few of their clients had GBNews on the TV.
So those whose whole f*cking lives have been transformed by the welfare state, universal state education, the nhs, public health, council housing, access to free university education, tons of goodies like warm homes money and on and on don't want the next generation to have any of it?
Jeez.
It’s time to tax the shit out of Werther’s Originals.
If you eat an entire bag of soft sugar-free Werthers Originals you get an absolutely colossal case of the poos within 36 hrs. If you time it right it is a brilliant way of avoiding diahorrea on long train journeys, because you are so empty after one of the attacks you can endure even the longest journey without needing to use BR toilets.
Just noting that Galloway received fewer votes than did the second placed Tory candidate at the last general election.
Massive popular mandate it is not.
That kind of analysis didn’t go down well after the two by elections Labour won recently
Did anyone claim Labour had won some sort of massive mandate at them ?
As Galloway just did.
I can’t remember what Labour supporters said, they must have made some claim or other. But when I noted that they had received 5,000 votes less than at the GE in one of them, and added 100 in the other, whereas Blair’s party in 1996 was piling on thousands of new votes in by elections, it didn’t go down well
Didn't bother me. But they were likely of slightly more predictive value than is Rochdale.
Let's see what happens to Galloway at the next election, shall we ?
The result is not necessarily bad news for Labour. What it should have done though is set off a fire alarm in Labour HQ. Much better to have a working fire alarm than a faulty one, if you react in time to the warning.
The damage from the result itself is limited. As someone commented down thread Starmer has in some ways already dodged a bullet, because it looks likely that GG would have won even if Labour had run a decent campaign with a decent candidate. As it is, GG winning a seat in which Labour had urged its supporters to stay at home is far less embarrassing.
How things play out now depends on what lessons Starmer takes in response to the warning, that is whether or not Labour belatedly adopts a line that is unequivocably critical of the actions of the current Israeli government going forward. Whether Starmer has the political nous to appreciate the need for that is questionable though, because his approach to Gaza to date has been remarkably cloth-eared.
Have I got your premise right - Lab's (only?) chance at the next UK General Election depends upon making the correct call about what is happening in Gaza. 2,226 miles away.
There is no politically possible correct call to be made. Centrist opinion has shifted away from the political/military leadership on all sides and supports good people of all backgrounds in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
There is no feasible policy this view can be turned into at the moment; there is no support for Israel's government or for Hamas among sane voters. The only UK politically possible option is to keep out as much as possible, support a cessation of hostilities and a two state solution (both currently impossible), and say that the UN (or anyone apart from us) should sort it out (currently impossible).
That's my position. I don't get why the Left are so worked up about calling for a ceasefire as there is no evidence at all that Hamas wants one. If they did, they would simply release the hostages, point made. I can only imagine the aim of Hamas is to reduce Gaza to rubble and so far they are succeeding.
Yes. Tragically it is obvious that both sides (political and military) intended and intend Gaza to be reduced to rubble and both sides at all times could and should have acted differently.
SFAICS there is no sane UK policy except to support international initiatives (UN, USA, Egypt, Saudi, Turkey, Jordan, France, Germany etc) to start a process that isn't mad and could move things forward.
So according to Yougov Reform is now doing better even than UKIP did in 2015
It wasn't in evidence last night
I'm not convinced REF will get much support in the GE. Certainly it will be well below what UKIP got in 2015. Maybe only 3 or 4% in the end?
Depends on the campaign and the Farage factor.
Third party surges aren’t common in British politics but depends just how despondent right wing voters get about the Tory prospects/whether they can stomach voting for them. Reform gives them an out if they want it.
If Sunak is able to steady the ship in the early days of the campaign (and by that I mean just hold Tory polling steady) then Reform could wither. However, all it takes is a couple of setpiece moments for Farage (if he leads the campaign) and some Rishi disasters, and I could still see crossover. Yes, really.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
Once in a while I get asked by the little scanner tap-to-pay machine to physically put my card in and type my pin in. Always assumed it was a semi-random security thing. Or I'm being skimmed by the local shops. One of the two...
Some cards/issuers only allow x number of tap-to-pay before asking for the pin. Using the pin resets the count.
Some do it as a semi random security check.
Another reason why everyone should dump the card and switch to ApplePay.
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
If you reserve a rail ticket on many corporate expense systems, it demands you insert your card if collecting tickets from a machine (travelcards are not issued as etickets yet for example). You can just tap and collect from a human being at the ticket office however (for now!).
Are there any rail companies that aren't set up to allow e-tickets these days?
I know it was a bit hit and miss a few years ago - not all gatelines had scanners, so you sometimes had to queue to show someone your phone before being let through. But I've not experienced that for ages...
Nope. All QR codes nowadays so yet another Landfill Nostalgic Red Herring. I used a QR code phone ticket on the Settle to Carlisle recently.
You need a paper ticket if your journey crosses London on the underground, as their barriers won't accept any sort of phone waggling malarkey.
Needless to say, my paper tickets were rejected by the Thameslink and Elizabeth Line barriers!
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I note what looks like a roughly 100 m2 currently cgi 4 bed detached is going for £570k... will people be able to afford that sort of price ?
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Adnams pubs won't take cash, on the other hand my barber and our dog groomer only take cash and remembering to take cash out for both is a pain I must admit. I avoid using cash, but I will admit to being caught out.
I am pondering why your barber and dog groomer only accept cash. Help me out here.
Just noting that Galloway received fewer votes than did the second placed Tory candidate at the last general election.
Massive popular mandate it is not.
That kind of analysis didn’t go down well after the two by elections Labour won recently
Did anyone claim Labour had won some sort of massive mandate at them ?
As Galloway just did.
I can’t remember what Labour supporters said, they must have made some claim or other. But when I noted that they had received 5,000 votes less than at the GE in one of them, and added 100 in the other, whereas Blair’s party in 1996 was piling on thousands of new votes in by elections, it didn’t go down well
Didn't bother me. But they were likely of slightly more predictive value than is Rochdale.
Let's see what happens to Galloway at the next election, shall we ?
The result is not necessarily bad news for Labour. What it should have done though is set off a fire alarm in Labour HQ. Much better to have a working fire alarm than a faulty one, if you react in time to the warning.
The damage from the result itself is limited. As someone commented down thread Starmer has in some ways already dodged a bullet, because it looks likely that GG would have won even if Labour had run a decent campaign with a decent candidate. As it is, GG winning a seat in which Labour had urged its supporters to stay at home is far less embarrassing.
How things play out now depends on what lessons Starmer takes in response to the warning, that is whether or not Labour belatedly adopts a line that is unequivocably critical of the actions of the current Israeli government going forward. Whether Starmer has the political nous to appreciate the need for that is questionable though, because his approach to Gaza to date has been remarkably cloth-eared.
Have I got your premise right - Lab's (only?) chance at the next UK General Election depends upon making the correct call about what is happening in Gaza. 2,226 miles away.
There is no politically possible correct call to be made. Centrist opinion has shifted away from the political/military leadership on all sides and supports good people of all backgrounds in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
There is no feasible policy this view can be turned into at the moment; there is no support for Israel's government or for Hamas among sane voters. The only UK politically possible option is to keep out as much as possible, support a cessation of hostilities and a two state solution (both currently impossible), and say that the UN (or anyone apart from us) should sort it out (currently impossible).
That's my position. I don't get why the Left are so worked up about calling for a ceasefire as there is no evidence at all that Hamas wants one. If they did, they would simply release the hostages, point made. I can only imagine the aim of Hamas is to reduce Gaza to rubble and so far they are succeeding.
Yes. Tragically it is obvious that both sides (political and military) intended and intend Gaza to be reduced to rubble and both sides at all times could and should have acted differently.
SFAICS there is no sane UK policy except to support international initiatives (UN, USA, Egypt, Saudi, Turkey, Jordan, France, Germany etc) to start a process that isn't mad and could move things forward.
Start work on my plan to solve the Israel/Palestine issue?
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Adnams pubs won't take cash, on the other hand my barber and our dog groomer only take cash and remembering to take cash out for both is a pain I must admit. I avoid using cash, but I will admit to being caught out.
I am pondering why your barber and dog groomer only accept cash. Help me out here.
With the large numbers of barbers that have sprung up round our way recently (mostly "Turkish" although we do have a Kurdish one) the suspicion is they are used to launder drug money
The 'traditional' barber where I get my locks shorn was remarking the other day that one rarely saw customers in the Turkish establishment that opened a couple of years ago in our small town.
Almost all the barbers round my way are Turkish barbers, they are full especially late Friday Afternoons/Evenings (often open after 10pm). There's a good reason for it though, this part of the city has one of the largest Turkish populations outside of Turkey.
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I note what looks like a roughly 100 m2 currently cgi 4 bed detached is going for £570k... will people be able to afford that sort of price ?
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I note what looks like a roughly 100 m2 currently cgi 4 bed detached is going for £570k... will people be able to afford that sort of price ?
You'd probably want to be earning £190k or so between a couple to be comfortable with that I'd imagine.
The housing market is completely sensitive to the issue of what actual people will actually pay. All this stuff about affordability is nonsense unless and until all these massive new estates are being offered at price £X and don't find takers.
This is not to say there are no problems, but failure to find actual buyers isn't one of them.
There is literally no one there watching. When the player holes a nice putt they normally tap their cap to thank the crowd for their applause, there is no applause as there is no crowd. They are playing for tens of millions of dollars in front of nobody.
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I note what looks like a roughly 100 m2 currently cgi 4 bed detached is going for £570k... will people be able to afford that sort of price ?
You'd probably want to be earning £190k or so between a couple to be comfortable with that I'd imagine.
The housing market is completely sensitive to the issue of what actual people will actually pay. All this stuff about affordability is nonsense unless and until all these massive new estates are being offered at price £X and don't find takers.
This is not to say there are no problems, but failure to find actual buyers isn't one of them.
You... could buy on a lower income but.. thats *probably* why the UK economy will be utterly bolloxed for the forseeable future, noone having any free cash to do anything other than pay the mortgage and bills.
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I note what looks like a roughly 100 m2 currently cgi 4 bed detached is going for £570k... will people be able to afford that sort of price ?
One of the toilets should probably be storage. Lord knows why developers these days seem to think a small 4 bed needs 3 bogs.
Have you lived in a house with more than one lady? :-)
The lack of built in closets in the bedroom plans is farcical. Especially when you can see where the design is to put them, so that the rooms become simple rectangles.
I think people are missing the point that if you go completely cashless you are well and truly fucked if you want to pop in for Char Siu Rice at Wong Kei in Wardour St.
Lol. A cross one has to bear
I do the lunch shift on the till at a cafe. There's always 1 or 2 people whose cards (or smartphones) don't work. It happens several times a day that someone tries to pay with a smartphone/watch and the machine says 'please insert card' - usually they then produce the card. Luckily most people around here still carry cash. Then there are the rarer occasions when the machine stops working and we can only take cash...
Weird. I only hear these anecdotes on PB. Never in real life. And I should know, because I use ApplePay exclusively. Don’t even carry a card.
In Cumberland we live on another planet, and I can take you to a Chinese takeaway with a massive turnover that is absolutely cash only, as are a number of remote lake district car parks with large numbers of bemused looking tourists wondering how to pay.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Adnams pubs won't take cash, on the other hand my barber and our dog groomer only take cash and remembering to take cash out for both is a pain I must admit. I avoid using cash, but I will admit to being caught out.
I am pondering why your barber and dog groomer only accept cash. Help me out here.
With the large numbers of barbers that have sprung up round our way recently (mostly "Turkish" although we do have a Kurdish one) the suspicion is they are used to launder drug money
Amazing you bring that up - a friend we went to dinner with last night said exactly the same thing.
I've only a rough idea of where you live, but how about something alliterate with a local flavour. Doric Dictator? Fyvie Firebrand? Inverurie Intellectual?
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I note what looks like a roughly 100 m2 currently cgi 4 bed detached is going for £570k... will people be able to afford that sort of price ?
You'd probably want to be earning £190k or so between a couple to be comfortable with that I'd imagine.
The housing market is completely sensitive to the issue of what actual people will actually pay. All this stuff about affordability is nonsense unless and until all these massive new estates are being offered at price £X and don't find takers.
This is not to say there are no problems, but failure to find actual buyers isn't one of them.
You... could buy on a lower income but.. thats *probably* why the UK economy will be utterly bolloxed for the forseeable future, noone having any free cash to do anything other than pay the mortgage and bills.
The bigger problem as I see it those who are likely to be renting permanently
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
Probably about 25% of US GDP per head. China's economy is now slowing sharply, and the population is falling. The US's population is increasing quite fast, so at some point, total US GDP is likely to move back ahead of Chinese.
25% having adjusted for PPP, you mean? Real terms?
Income in China varies tremendously by region (much more than the USA)
A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American (and there are maybe 100m or 200m Chinese people like this)
The further west you go, the further inland, the poorer it gets, much poorer than anywhere in the USA, even Mississippi
Yes I'd have thought the poorest Chinese were still poorer than the poorest Americans.
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
I don't think Leon is right:
China's richest region per capita:
Beijing GDP US$28,294 PPP US$47,154
China's poorest Gansu US$6,686 / PPP US$11,142
UK (2018) GDP per cap: Highest: Inner London – West US $244,789 2nd: Inner London - East US $67,300 Lowest: Southern Scotland $25,500
USA
Highest State / DC DC $259,938
4 States all above $100k (NY, MA, CA, WA) Lowest Mississippi $49,911
Per head there's a fair gap between China and the UK and ourselves and the USA.
China's strength stems from the fact they've got 1.4 billion people more than anything (Yes it'll go down, but it'll take a while).
Don't foget Hong Kong is now part of China: $56k
Also, my point was not the numbers, which is why I specifically avoided saying that, my point was "A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American"
And they do
And this is where PPP comes in. In nomimal terms Yanks are apparently way richer than even the rich Chinese, but when you visit both countries you see this isn't really true in terms of lifestyle/ Yes Americans are still richer but middle class Chinese own cars, houses, have nice jobs in big gleaming cities, they aren't SO far apart - because everything is so much cheaper in China
I'll have to go back to China at some point if possible, journeyed through it by train back in 2003. Perhaps Yunnan.
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Lots of HK Chinese around here too (Sale). HK kids who have arrived in the past couple of years make up about 15%-20% of the kids at my youngest's primary school - that's a big change since my eldest went there - and about the same proportion of my middle daughter's football team*. In general, they are exactly how you would want immigrants to be. They integrate well (naturally the adults often form their own bubbles, as I'm sure I would with other English speakers if I went somewhere non-English speaking, but they're friendly and keen to interact with the natives), they don't demand that the host society suddenly conform to new values for their sake, they don't demand special treatment or quotas; they don't commit crime or even any minor disorder, or live twelve to a house; they quickly get good jobs. They don't even dress particularly differently once they have got used to the need to wrap up rather more warmly. Even the most immigration-sceptic find it hard to object to HK Chinese immigration, or even really notice it. I have heard complaints on only two themes about so much HK Chinese immigration; one is that their impact on the housing market means that buying housing remains very challenging in Sale even as house prices fall elsewhere in the country; and the sotto voce and not-terribly-serious complaint that their kids are all so well-educated and driven that it is even harder to be one of the top 20% or so who get grammar school places. But that seems a very minor price to pay.
*I am particularly charmed by the HK Chinese girls on the football team, who never really touched a ball until 18 months ago, and two of whom are now quite brilliant in their own ways (one is an unbeatable Beckenbauer-type figure; always in the right place at the right time, unflappably extending a lazy leg to take the ball away from an unsuspecting attacker as she bears down on goal; another is a tiny Brazilian-style inside right who will receive the ball as four defenders bear down on her, unfussily take the ball away from all of them and play a neat little pass on to the centre forward - I am captivated watching her because every instinct in me is silently yelling at her to get it away as quickly and forcibly as possible, but then my footballing instincts are English).
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
Good morning everybody! I suggest that if your daughter is doing a degree, which would encourage her to think, and to question, then the degree, she takes will stand in good state, whether or not technology has overtaken her particular subject. The very best of luck to her; granddaughter number two has this morning sent off two uni applications. They are Australian universities so they don’t start until February next year, by which time she will have her IB results.
Without going into details, she chose a degree she thought she would quite enjoy, BUT also because it was likely to lead to a good career: it wasn't her first choice emotionally, it wasn't the degree she would choose if nothing else mattered
She is very bright and she'd now genned up on AI and she is convinced that career could very easily not happen: it's in a cognitive field ripe for automation. She's correct, to my mind
Her passion is Classics. Totally pointless, totally non vocational, but she REALLY likes it. I've told her to go for that. Better to spend three years having intellectual fun, and let the future go hang, there's a 40% chance the computers will turn us all into pets by 2033, anyway
When we were doing the rounds with our son we went to LSE where a truly inspirational Maths/finance lecturer came seriously close to stealing his heart. He said, "when you go to University, choose something you love. You have the rest of your life to be bored."
It was spot on advice and made me, once again, regret my dull, pragmatic, choice of law.
It sounds to me that you have had a very interesting career in Law, as interesting as mine in Medicine.
People are endlessly fascinating and surprising. It's great to fossick about in their lives and be paid well to do so.
That is certainly the best part of it. I also like believing I can make a difference. The complainer in last week's rape trial reached out to say that the conviction will change her life. That sort of thing really gives you a boost. I am sure medicine gives many similar boosts.
But I am much more fascinated by economics than I ever was by law and would have loved to study economic history. When I retire that is certainly my plan for a second degree. My mind might struggle more with the maths these days but hopefully wide reading and life experience will offset that.
I am seriously considering studying African 20th Century history and economics to keep me interested in retirement. Of any useful purpose? Almost certainly not, but fascinating, and I love Africa.
Great idea
There should be a lot more OAPs/retired doing degree courses in subjects of no practical use to them, but to broaden their horizons/further their knowledge. I think this would be a great thing, both for the individual who keeps their mind stimulated instead of just watching daytime tv, and society overall
Indeedy- and not just the retired. All of us would benefit from that. And if AI is going to massively reduce the amount of work humans need to do, moving to a world of gentleman scholar-artists is one of the more wholesome outcomes.
One of the maddening things is that the bits of the education system that used to do those things pretty well and across the country- FE, Adult Education, the Open University- are basically on their last legs.
I actually did it when I was 35. Was betting at home and decided to do a university course to fill in the spare time. I did Humanities at Brighton, thinking it would reinforce my existing supposedly left wing views. I didn’t have the intention to change career on the back of it. Arrived just after voting for Gordon Brown in 2010 and left as a member of UKIP!
Didn’t finish the course in the end, but it was interesting to be back in the classroom.
Blimey. My colleagues in the woke lefty brainwashing academic cabal (Brighton branch) did a shit job then, didn't they?
We will look for learnings and endeavour to do better!
The bloke I worked for in Brighton called it ‘The Communist Factory’!
Hmm. Maybe they were laying it on a bit strong then. Subtlety is all.
If there's one thing Communists are known for it is subtlety. Or nuance.
(Arguing over ideological minutiae does not count.)
There is literally no one there watching. When the player holes a nice putt they normally tap their cap to thank the crowd for their applause, there is no applause as there is no crowd. They are playing for tens of millions of dollars in front of nobody.
Here’s a troubling anecdote to brighten up a dismal day
My eldest daughter has got offers from all the universities she wanted. Including some very very good ones
Normally that’s a Yay, right?
Except she is now convinced the career she wanted to do will be automated by AI within 5-10 years so her degree will be useless
This is not my doing btw. She’s been a total AI skeptic until very recently, indeed she’s scoffed at some of my predictions
I don’t know what to advise her. I’ve told her to do the degree that will make her happy - engage her intellectually - maybe no one will have a job in 10 years, we just don’t know
So AI is now seriously impacting human lives and crucial decisions and it hasn’t even really arrived yet
Brace
I'd remind her of a rather unwise fellow who, over a decade ago, said that there would be no lorry drivers in a decade because of autonomous vehicles.
Some posters have a rather poor history of predictions, however much they hype themselves (and their predictions) up.
See also:
• China will be the world’s biggest economy in five years (predicted five years ago, over and over again on here)
• Liz Truss will surprise on the upside
In a purchasing power parity comparison, China exceeded US GDP a couple of years ago
Does this mean the average Chinese person is in real terms better off than the average American?
Probably about 25% of US GDP per head. China's economy is now slowing sharply, and the population is falling. The US's population is increasing quite fast, so at some point, total US GDP is likely to move back ahead of Chinese.
25% having adjusted for PPP, you mean? Real terms?
Income in China varies tremendously by region (much more than the USA)
A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American (and there are maybe 100m or 200m Chinese people like this)
The further west you go, the further inland, the poorer it gets, much poorer than anywhere in the USA, even Mississippi
Yes I'd have thought the poorest Chinese were still poorer than the poorest Americans.
So perhaps (PP not nominal) GDP per capita gives the best measure of the overall material standard of living of a country's population.
I wonder who's globally top amongst non-small countries? Eg where are we? And how does China vs USA look on that metric?
I don't think Leon is right:
China's richest region per capita:
Beijing GDP US$28,294 PPP US$47,154
China's poorest Gansu US$6,686 / PPP US$11,142
UK (2018) GDP per cap: Highest: Inner London – West US $244,789 2nd: Inner London - East US $67,300 Lowest: Southern Scotland $25,500
USA
Highest State / DC DC $259,938
4 States all above $100k (NY, MA, CA, WA) Lowest Mississippi $49,911
Per head there's a fair gap between China and the UK and ourselves and the USA.
China's strength stems from the fact they've got 1.4 billion people more than anything (Yes it'll go down, but it'll take a while).
Don't foget Hong Kong is now part of China: $56k
Also, my point was not the numbers, which is why I specifically avoided saying that, my point was "A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American"
And they do
And this is where PPP comes in. In nomimal terms Yanks are apparently way richer than even the rich Chinese, but when you visit both countries you see this isn't really true in terms of lifestyle/ Yes Americans are still richer but middle class Chinese own cars, houses, have nice jobs in big gleaming cities, they aren't SO far apart - because everything is so much cheaper in China
I'll have to go back to China at some point if possible, journeyed through it by train back in 2003. Perhaps Yunnan.
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Lots of HK Chinese around here too (Sale). HK kids who have arrived in the past couple of years make up about 15%-20% of the kids at my youngest's primary school - that's a big change since my eldest went there - and about the same proportion of my middle daughter's football team*. In general, they are exactly how you would want immigrants to be. They integrate well (naturally the adults often form their own bubbles, as I'm sure I would with other English speakers if I went somewhere non-English speaking, but they're friendly and keen to interact with the natives), they don't demand that the host society suddenly conform to new values for their sake, they don't demand special treatment or quotas; they don't commit crime or even any minor disorder, or live twelve to a house; they quickly get good jobs. They don't even dress particularly differently once they have got used to the need to wrap up rather more warmly. Even the most immigration-sceptic find it hard to object to HK Chinese immigration, or even really notice it. I have heard complaints on only two themes about so much HK Chinese immigration; one is that their impact on the housing market means that buying housing remains very challenging in Sale even as house prices fall elsewhere in the country; and the sotto voce and not-terribly-serious complaint that their kids are all so well-educated and driven that it is even harder to be one of the top 20% or so who get grammar school places. But that seems a very minor price to pay.
*I am particularly charmed by the HK Chinese girls on the football team, who never really touched a ball until 18 months ago, and two of whom are now quite brilliant in their own ways (one is an unbeatable Beckenbauer-type figure; always in the right place at the right time, unflappably extending a lazy leg to take the ball away from an unsuspecting attacker as she bears down on goal; another is a tiny Brazilian-style inside right who will receive the ball as four defenders bear down on her, unfussily take the ball away from all of them and play a neat little pass on to the centre forward - I am captivated watching her because every instinct in me is silently yelling at her to get it away as quickly and forcibly as possible, but then my footballing instincts are English).
There was a comment about Australia, that they were cheating by only taking "uncomplicated immigrants"
Just come around here - there're loads of Chinese moving into Cambourne West. Most from Hong Kong, I believe. I've chatted to a fair few of them, and they're all lovely. Although some seem a little shellshocked at life over here...
Snipped as the convo was getting a bit unwieldy.
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
Yep. I can hear some of the diggers going crunch-crunch-crunch now, from my study. They're building not far off. Cambourne currently has 4,250 houses.
We have at least three major developments being built: *) Cambourne West (2,350 houses) *) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses) *) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots: *) Wintrigham (2,800 houses) *) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I note what looks like a roughly 100 m2 currently cgi 4 bed detached is going for £570k... will people be able to afford that sort of price ?
You'd probably want to be earning £190k or so between a couple to be comfortable with that I'd imagine.
The housing market is completely sensitive to the issue of what actual people will actually pay. All this stuff about affordability is nonsense unless and until all these massive new estates are being offered at price £X and don't find takers.
This is not to say there are no problems, but failure to find actual buyers isn't one of them.
You... could buy on a lower income but.. thats *probably* why the UK economy will be utterly bolloxed for the forseeable future, noone having any free cash to do anything other than pay the mortgage and bills.
The bigger problem as I see it those who are likely to be renting permanently
Mortgages get paid off leaving an asset
And they don't have a pension which will pay anything like the rent.
Everyone moves to a remote Scottish island? EDIT : on a serious note, I expect that moving from commutable to a totally non-commutable area, on retirement will become a big thing.
My mother used to say (back in the days when prices weren't insane) that either you paid your mortgage, or you paid someone else's.
There is literally no one there watching. When the player holes a nice putt they normally tap their cap to thank the crowd for their applause, there is no applause as there is no crowd. They are playing for tens of millions of dollars in front of nobody.
A lawyer at Travers Smith has been fired after he had kittens over some kittens, RollOnFriday understands.
The associate, whom ROF is not naming, was on secondment at Inflexion, an important private equity client of the firm.
An Inflexion employee posted on the company's internal messaging app that she had a number of kittens for sale and asked if anyone wanted to buy them.
The Travers Smith secondee said he would take two, but one week later he told the seller he wanted to return them because they had fleas, sources said.
She refused, but over the next couple of weeks the Travers associate repeatedly messaged her to say that she needed to take the kittens back and refund him because their fleas meant they were not sold as described, sources told ROF.
His requests culminated in an eight page letter which set out "all his legal and statutory rights" and demanded that the seller take the cats back and refund him or he would initiate court proceedings against her, said sources.
At that point it’s understood that the Inflexion employee reported the Travers lawyer to HR, which contacted Inflexion's head of legal, who called Travers' head of private equity.
Inflexion told her what had happened and informed her that the company no longer wanted the secondee, and that Travers had to take him back. Unlike the associate with the flea-ridden kitties, Inflexion's request was granted.
ROF understands that on his return to Travers, the associate was hauled in for a meeting and instructed to apologise to the seller and told that, if he didn’t want the kittens, he should donate them to a charity shelter. He was also told to attend a meeting at the firm the next day.
At the second meeting, sources said, the associate dug in his heels and refused to give the cats away for free, insisting that he would only do so if Travers Smith refunded him the purchase price. Instead, he was dismissed.
“The kicker is that apparently after all of this he still has the kittens”, said a source. Which would make them a pair of the priciest moggies in London.
Labour close to dropping to third behind Reform among the 65+ age group. Split is 37-28-26 (C-L-R) in that age group.
One of my carers remarked the other day that quite a few of their clients had GBNews on the TV.
So those whose whole f*cking lives have been transformed by the welfare state, universal state education, the nhs, public health, council housing, access to free university education, tons of goodies like warm homes money and on and on don't want the next generation to have any of it?
Jeez.
No one ever have them any help. Apart from all the help of course.
There is literally no one there watching. When the player holes a nice putt they normally tap their cap to thank the crowd for their applause, there is no applause as there is no crowd. They are playing for tens of millions of dollars in front of nobody.
The future for many sports. Cash talks.
To have nobody in attendance?
Rich nations coopting major events for sportswashing, not caring if anybody watches in person or not.
Comments
As here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhOht9t0zSU&t=25s ?
China's richest region per capita:
Beijing GDP US$28,294 PPP US$47,154
China's poorest
Gansu US$6,686 / PPP US$11,142
UK (2018) GDP per cap:
Highest: Inner London – West US $244,789
2nd: Inner London - East US $67,300
Lowest: Southern Scotland $25,500
USA
Highest State / DC
DC $259,938
4 States all above $100k (NY, MA, CA, WA)
Lowest Mississippi $49,911
Per head there's a fair gap between China and the UK and ourselves and the USA.
China's strength stems from the fact they've got 1.4 billion people more than anything (Yes it'll go down, but it'll take a while).
Some do it as a semi random security check.
And as far as being doomed that nearly always exists in some form or other. In my day the world was about to be annihilated by the bomb and we were just about to run out of oil, so why bother. As you have probably noticed neither happened.
I don't know a single retailer etc that doesn't take cash.
My most recent experiences of 'cash only, systems have broken down' were at a shop in Euston station, and, on the same occasion, the buffet on the train back to God's own country.
Within the UK I always carry enough cash to get home, and I suspect there will be the need for cash for a few decades yet, and as long as there are old people with jam jars for rent, gas, etc, and proper drinking pubs in the north of England, on course betting, and income tax/VAT and small scale drug dealing.
BTW preservation of cash is one of the many policies of Galloway's political party. (Along with leaving NATO, and infinite free stuff for the workers).
Also shows, once again, that PB is not very representative if you consider our retired cohort seem sane.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHUMzsSTdQ4
Also, my point was not the numbers, which is why I specifically avoided saying that, my point was "A middle class Chinese person in a rich coastal city enjoys a lifestyle comparable to a middle class American"
And they do
And this is where PPP comes in. In nomimal terms Yanks are apparently way richer than even the rich Chinese, but when you visit both countries you see this isn't really true in terms of lifestyle/ Yes Americans are still richer but middle class Chinese own cars, houses, have nice jobs in big gleaming cities, they aren't SO far apart - because everything is so much cheaper in China
Made in jest, but all the same...
The damage from the result itself is limited. As someone commented down thread Starmer has in some ways already dodged a bullet, because it looks likely that GG would have won even if Labour had run a decent campaign with a decent candidate. As it is, GG winning a seat in which Labour had urged its supporters to stay at home is far less embarrassing.
How things play out now depends on what lessons Starmer takes in response to the warning, that is whether or not Labour belatedly adopts a line that is unequivocably critical of the actions of the current Israeli government going forward. Whether Starmer has the political nous to appreciate the need for that is questionable though, because his approach to Gaza to date has been remarkably cloth-eared.
So, yes, it becomes quite conceivable that we will prefer Deepfake Politicians who don't exist but look good and say the right things
But, seriously. The experience is good. It widens horizons. It makes contacts. Whatever comes, being better educated is not going to be a bad thing. Unless our new AI overlords decide the Khmer Rouge had it right
Jeez, my generation had it so easy. They PAID us to go to Uni, and then all I did was loaf about, do drugs, have (some) sex (not enough, that came later), do more drugs, go to parties, have a blast, make friends for life, and I was PAID to do this. Insane
And I called it utterly wrong, I misled you and I apologise for it.
I was wrong to such an extent, i now analyse from the collapse of Ali’s support, if long time Labour moderate and fighter of anti semitism in Muslim communities Ali, had not pushed his horrid conspiracy theory about Netanyahu’s government at that crazy meeting with quitting councillors, and remained Labour candidate, I suspect he still would have lost to Galloway anyway.
I agree with TSE. If Tories, with splendid record of learning wrong thing from by elections, seek a May election to exploit Labours heat over the Gaza Duck shoot - how exactly does Netanyahu and his supporters kill the ideas and ideology of Hamas simply by slaughtering people? The very fundamental thing wrong in the Hamas attack on Israel is now showing up in Israel’s response is it not - this is not the thing to try and exploit for a General Election win. There are many good reasons for a May election, looking at expert modelling and media narrative for summer and Autumn, not least the explosion in boat crossings from July blowing the Conservative Party into lots of little pieces. But exploiting Labours - like Jo Biden’s - real electoral difficulties over horror in the Middle East is not one of them.
Looking for positives, Labour do now have a clear hare in Rochdale to chase down and rip to shreds on GE night. The General Election will be different psychology - much like Tories are courting Reform with “a vote for reform let’s in Starmer” Labour will squeeze minor parties and supporters of independents with “you will let in 5 more years of Sunak.”
The high speed trains are phenonemal. Beijing to Shanghai. I LOVE Shanghai, it's a magnificent city, it is basically taking over from poor old Hong Kong
CON 14%
LAB 53%
LDM 7%
RFM 10%
GRN 9%
If the elderly hadn't become so politically disassociated from the rest of the country then we'd be having a very different political discourse.
There is no feasible policy this view can be turned into at the moment; there is no support for Israel's government or for Hamas among sane voters. The only UK politically possible option is to keep out as much as possible, support a cessation of hostilities and a two state solution (both currently impossible), and say that the UN (or anyone apart from us) should sort it out (currently impossible).
Are you near all the new housebuilding going on ex Cambridge environs ? Anecdotally it seems like a staggering amount of building going on, more than anywhere else in England probably.
https://www.reddit.com/r/applehate/
A considered opinion:
"I work in retail....it's ALWAYS the people with iphones that bitch and complain that we don't have stupid apple pay. Like, literally nobody with an android or samsung has ever bitched about not being able to use google pay or samsung pay. Like..........the world isn't going to spend the money to get a stupid terminal for contactless payment..........GET OVER IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUCKING stupid iphone users!! Take your apple pay and your NFC chip and shove it up your ass"
Ludicrous to draw any general conclusions from this result.
You can’t be seen to be jumping to the tune of the walking mouth .
We have at least three major developments being built:
*) Cambourne West (2,350 houses)
*) Waterbeach New Town (6,500 houses)
*) Northstowe (11,000 houses)
As well as this, it is expected that the old Bourn airfield site, immediately to the east of Cambourne, will be built upon - perhaps 3,500 homes. And there is talk of houses (perhaps 10,000) on the area immediately to the north, over the dual carriageway. And the (Lib Dem) council wants to squeeze 250 extra homes on land that was zoned to be used by business. That's the only scheme I'm against.
There's also the new developments at St Neots:
*) Wintrigham (2,800 houses)
*) Monksfield - just being started (1,020 houses)
The latter is hilariously named - it is eight miles away from us, and we already have a 'Monkfield' school, a 'Monkfield' doctor's surgery, a 'Monkfield' pub, etc, etc. Calling the new development 'Monksfield' is going to cause all sorts of hilarity...
I know it was a bit hit and miss a few years ago - not all gatelines had scanners, so you sometimes had to queue to show someone your phone before being let through. But I've not experienced that for ages...
https://www.rightmove.co.uk/properties/134203304#/?channel=RES_NEW
You'd probably want to be earning £190k or so between a couple to be comfortable with that I'd imagine.
P.S. 4G on the Central Line. OMG.
Yes we Khan!!!
Jeez.
Actually there's more - study, hall is a mirror image. They probably do have a mirror image variant too, but it's careless.
But they'd both hate to admit it.
I think one question is the usual one - how many will be buying that as their first house? I suggest most will need to fund the difference.
FTB status giving exemption from Stamp Duty may help.
There also seem to be some cashbacks (I make it 7k) available, which is interesting. Developers are trying to protect the headline price.
Are FTB government-subsidy schemes still operating?
The fascination with retro tech for anything to do with finance in the US is definitely a thing, and leads to all sorts of shonky workarounds like CashApp.
I have half a theory that some of the blame for this can be laid on IBM for not collapsing when the rest of the world's mainframe computer companies died off...
The US politicians couldn't understand how they weren't planning to gouge their poor customers somehow. That and they didn't want to undermine the local cooperative loans/banking things - which tend to be heavily linked with grass roots political activism.
Pause
Would you prefer if I talked about Gaza?
😎
SFAICS there is no sane UK policy except to support international initiatives (UN, USA, Egypt, Saudi, Turkey, Jordan, France, Germany etc) to start a process that isn't mad and could move things forward.
Third party surges aren’t common in British politics but depends just how despondent right wing voters get about the Tory prospects/whether they can stomach voting for them. Reform gives them an out if they want it.
If Sunak is able to steady the ship in the early days of the campaign (and by that I mean just hold Tory polling steady) then Reform could wither. However, all it takes is a couple of setpiece moments for Farage (if he leads the campaign) and some Rishi disasters, and I could still see crossover. Yes, really.
2. Danczuk
3. Danczuk
Do not pick a man like that as your candidate for a community rocked by grooming scandals...
Needless to say, my paper tickets were rejected by the Thameslink and Elizabeth Line barriers!
As a comparator, one of those on a posher suburb of Nottingham - West Bridgford, which is Ken Clarke country, is on at £530k.
https://www.bovishomes.co.uk/developments/nottinghamshire/edwalton-fields-nottingham/home-3020
Up here at the Northern end of the county in Leeanderthal country, I'd put it at perhaps £375-400k new.
No, we Khan't!!!
@InsiderEng can now reveal he was also a GRU agent for a decade.
https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1763514514668912722
This is not to say there are no problems, but failure to find actual buyers isn't one of them.
FTX is the one where an infinite number of sharks.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RyRD4m3gl-s
There is literally no one there watching. When the player holes a nice putt they normally tap their cap to thank the crowd for their applause, there is no applause as there is no crowd. They are playing for tens of millions of dollars in front of nobody.
The lack of built in closets in the bedroom plans is farcical. Especially when you can see where the design is to put them, so that the rooms become simple rectangles.
Mortgages get paid off leaving an asset
In general, they are exactly how you would want immigrants to be. They integrate well (naturally the adults often form their own bubbles, as I'm sure I would with other English speakers if I went somewhere non-English speaking, but they're friendly and keen to interact with the natives), they don't demand that the host society suddenly conform to new values for their sake, they don't demand special treatment or quotas; they don't commit crime or even any minor disorder, or live twelve to a house; they quickly get good jobs. They don't even dress particularly differently once they have got used to the need to wrap up rather more warmly. Even the most immigration-sceptic find it hard to object to HK Chinese immigration, or even really notice it.
I have heard complaints on only two themes about so much HK Chinese immigration; one is that their impact on the housing market means that buying housing remains very challenging in Sale even as house prices fall elsewhere in the country; and the sotto voce and not-terribly-serious complaint that their kids are all so well-educated and driven that it is even harder to be one of the top 20% or so who get grammar school places. But that seems a very minor price to pay.
*I am particularly charmed by the HK Chinese girls on the football team, who never really touched a ball until 18 months ago, and two of whom are now quite brilliant in their own ways (one is an unbeatable Beckenbauer-type figure; always in the right place at the right time, unflappably extending a lazy leg to take the ball away from an unsuspecting attacker as she bears down on goal; another is a tiny Brazilian-style inside right who will receive the ball as four defenders bear down on her, unfussily take the ball away from all of them and play a neat little pass on to the centre forward - I am captivated watching her because every instinct in me is silently yelling at her to get it away as quickly and forcibly as possible, but then my footballing instincts are English).
(Arguing over ideological minutiae does not count.)
Everyone moves to a remote Scottish island? EDIT : on a serious note, I expect that moving from commutable to a totally non-commutable area, on retirement will become a big thing.
My mother used to say (back in the days when prices weren't insane) that either you paid your mortgage, or you paid someone else's.
The associate, whom ROF is not naming, was on secondment at Inflexion, an important private equity client of the firm.
An Inflexion employee posted on the company's internal messaging app that she had a number of kittens for sale and asked if anyone wanted to buy them.
The Travers Smith secondee said he would take two, but one week later he told the seller he wanted to return them because they had fleas, sources said.
She refused, but over the next couple of weeks the Travers associate repeatedly messaged her to say that she needed to take the kittens back and refund him because their fleas meant they were not sold as described, sources told ROF.
His requests culminated in an eight page letter which set out "all his legal and statutory rights" and demanded that the seller take the cats back and refund him or he would initiate court proceedings against her, said sources.
At that point it’s understood that the Inflexion employee reported the Travers lawyer to HR, which contacted Inflexion's head of legal, who called Travers' head of private equity.
Inflexion told her what had happened and informed her that the company no longer wanted the secondee, and that Travers had to take him back. Unlike the associate with the flea-ridden kitties, Inflexion's request was granted.
ROF understands that on his return to Travers, the associate was hauled in for a meeting and instructed to apologise to the seller and told that, if he didn’t want the kittens, he should donate them to a charity shelter. He was also told to attend a meeting at the firm the next day.
At the second meeting, sources said, the associate dug in his heels and refused to give the cats away for free, insisting that he would only do so if Travers Smith refunded him the purchase price. Instead, he was dismissed.
“The kicker is that apparently after all of this he still has the kittens”, said a source. Which would make them a pair of the priciest moggies in London.
Travers Smith and Inflexion declined to comment.
https://www.rollonfriday.com/news-content/exclusive-travers-smith-associate-dismissed-after-complaining-client-sold-him-flea
Still enough to destroy the Tories further, but the yearning for them to do well in some 'Tory' quarters may be optimistic.