Coming back to the thread header (the Threader?) a few points stand out:
Support for Welsh independence has significantally increased from 5-10% around 5 years ago to 30-33% today. It has done this without an organised campaign or open debate. This is very much a groundswell of popular opinion It has done this in the absence of factual data on the economic pros and cons of independence - this is based mostly on an emotional appeal. The finishing line for independence is 50%+1 not 100%. That is in reaching distance of 33%. Or put it another way we only need to convert one more person for every 2 current suppoters to achueve popular support.
We still have a long way to go but it is a realistic and achievable target.
To add to previous post - there is clearly a hardcore of 25-30% of indysceptics who will never vote Yes. We dont need them to win. The target is the middle 30% of indydoubters. We need to convert this group.
I am willing to wager 10 whole GBP, at odds of 10^6:1, that I will be able to defeat Elon Musk's best AI or "AGI" program in a free-form Turing match before a date to be agreed.
The match will consist of 10 free-form games, 5 with me against his program and 5 with me against human beings to be chosen by an agreed method.
Each game will take the form of textual correspondence, with me and the opponent allowed to raise whatever topics we like.
There will be rules governing how the human players behave. They will be allowed to joke, but they will not be allowed to pretend to be programs. Thus play will have to be overseen by an umpire. I, however, will be able to type whatever I want.
Play in each game will continue for as long as I wish it to. (So the program will not be allowed to bring a game to an end by saying for example that it has got a headache.)
I win if I correctly identify which 5 opponents were runs of the program and which were genuine human persons. Otherwise I lose.
Notes
1. I am not willing to take part in dry runs to help with the opponent's training.
2. How is Elon "Lardarse Shroomhead" Musk's plan for a fight with Mark Zuckerberg coming along? Was his fascist friend Giorgia Meloni unable to book the Colosseum?
Schools in England accused of closing down debate on Israel-Gaza conflict Government adviser says teachers feel ill-equipped to talk about controversial topics but avoiding debate risks fuelling anger
Dame Sara Khan said that if schools continued to shut down debate they risked “fuelling further anger, hate and polarisation”.
She said the conflict, which has prompted huge demonstrations by hundreds of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters across London and elsewhere, has had a marked impact on schools, where pupils want to talk about events in Gaza.
Days after the publication of her review into threats to social cohesion, Khan repeated her assertion that teachers were avoiding addressing controversial issues because of fears of being targeted by campaigns of intimidation and harassment.
She also said teachers felt there was too little guidance on teaching controversial issues in personal, social, health and economic (PSHE) lessons and were worried about a lack of support from the Department for Education (DfE) when difficulties arose.
Her review – which highlights the case of a religious studies teacher at Batley grammar school in West Yorkshire who was forced into hiding after accusations of blasphemy – recommends a cohesion and conflict unit be set up to support teachers who find themselves being threatened. The unit would also provide training resources to support schools on controversial topics.
The war in Gaza has caused a number of incidents in schools. In one case, Barclay primary school in Leyton, east London, sought help from the Metropolitan police to investigate threats to the school and abuse of staff after its decision to ban political symbols, including the Palestinian flag.
Although many teachers are reluctant to speak out, one secondary school teacher, who did not want to be named, told the Guardian their school was one of the few that had agreed to hold assemblies on the issue and offer a weekly safe space for discussion about the conflict.
“We’re lucky. Generally, management are terrified and teachers are terrified to discuss it. The biggest problem is the kind of silence around it in the vast majority of schools,” they said.
Another teacher in an inner-city school, who also wished to remain anonymous, said it was a “massive failing” on the part of schools. “From the word go, we were told this was a political issue and we can’t discuss it. If we’re not talking about it, it does not mean that the kids are not interested. They know what’s going on. They are going online where there’s no control over what they are seeing.”..
In my anecdotal experience this is nonsense. My school is very diverse and has people of all faiths and plenty who have no faith. In my Y11 class I have kid who has found the past few months very tricky as he has family in Israel. Right next to him is a devout Muslim fasting for Ramadan.
We talk about this stuff. Not as much as we should - but that’s just because time for anything other than the sausage factory of exam prep gets badly squeezed. The only bit of self censorship we did is replace a Channel 4 Youtube video on Hamas with a BBC one because we felt the Channel 4 was too uncritical of Hamas.
Most teachers don’t really know enough to have an opinion on the conflict but it’s pretty easy to empathise with students who do and to help students navigate the complexities of this. No one has ever suggested it shouldn’t be a topic for discussion in school.
It is very easy to retreat in to a kind of mindless cowardice.
One thing I noticed was that my youngest daughter’s school was especially good at dealing with tricky topics. The head was one of those people who would have walked through fire for her staff and pupils. Not in a showy way. But in that very British let’s-not-be-silly kind of way. Leadership, I think they call it.
Exactly this. Also, it’s very easy to be an arsehole about things that others feel strongly about eg Gaza.
I’d argue good leadership is often about being neither a coward nor an arsehole.
One final point - the Welsh Labour Party may be categorised as unioinst party, but polls show that up to 50% of its existing voters also support independence. An independent Welsh Labour Party (as opposed to the Welsh branded version of the UK Labour Party) could potenially come out in favour of independence.
"Cyanobacteria are probably the most numerous taxon to have ever existed on Earth and the first organisms known to have produced oxygen.[11] By producing and releasing oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis, cyanobacteria are thought to have converted the early oxygen-poor, reducing atmosphere into an oxidizing one, causing the Great Oxidation Event and the "rusting of the Earth",[12] which dramatically changed the composition of life forms on Earth."
(We all, I think, should thank them from time to time. Especially when we breathe.)
"[Donald] Trump, (...) who was in Ohio on Saturday for a campaign stop at the Buckeye Values PAC rally, came under criticism for telling rallygoers that if he doesn't get reelected in November "it's going to be a bloodbath for the country."
Following his remark, Mary Trump took to X, formerly Twitter, to warn others of the seriousness of her uncle's statement.
"Donald Trump does not deserve the benefit of the doubt and this isn't a f***ing joke. His statement is both a threat and a promise. "" (BBM)
Years ago, I read the first book in the "Three Body" trilogy, liked it a lot, but somehow never felt like reading the other two. I have no explanation for that, other than a feeling that there were so many other books I ought to read.
THIS is what Claude 3 Opus can do, after reading a 350 page novel for FORTY FIVE SECONDS. I have a novelist friend, and she just forwarded this to me. Sit back and absorb what this means for all of us
"Based on the clues and revelations throughout the story, I believe there are a few key suspects and possibilities for what really happened to Natalie Tyack:
Malcolm Tyack: As Natalie's husband, Malcolm had the most direct access and potential motive. The photos of him stalking Natalie suggest a level of obsession and control that could have turned violent. If he discovered she was having an affair and possibly pregnant with another man's child, he might have been driven to murder in a fit of rage and jealousy.
Derek Coppinger: As the likely biological father of Natalie, Derek's relationship with her is shrouded in mystery and potential darkness. If they had an inappropriate or abusive relationship, Natalie may have threatened to expose him, leading him to silence her permanently. His connection to DCI Diana Curtis also suggests a potential police coverup.
Miles Tyack: Miles' excessive drinking and emotional instability make him a wild card. As the younger, resentful brother, he may have harbored jealousy or anger towards Natalie, especially if he felt she was a threat to the Tyack family legacy. His constant refusal to stay at Baldhu overnight is suspicious.
Supernatural forces: While I believe the hauntings at Baldhu are more likely a manifestation of inherited trauma and psychological distress, we cannot rule out the possibility that Natalie's death was somehow orchestrated by the malevolent supernatural entities that seem to plague the house. If the "ghosts" are real, they may have driven Natalie to madness or suicide.
Accident or suicide: Given Natalie's troubled past, her potential pregnancy, and the stress of living in a haunted house, it's possible that her death was a tragic accident or even a deliberate suicide. Grace's account of their final interaction suggests that Natalie was deeply distressed and possibly planning to take her own life.
Ultimately, I believe the key to unraveling the mystery lies in the tangled web of family secrets, inherited trauma, and the dark history of the Tyacks. I suspect that Natalie discovered something devastating about her own past or the Tyack family legacy, and that this knowledge put her in danger. Whether she was murdered to keep her silent or driven to take her own life, I believe the truth will be deeply rooted in the generational guilt and dysfunction of the Tyack family.
Of course, these are just my theories based on the clues presented so far. I'm eagerly awaiting the final chapters to see how you bring all the threads together and reveal the shocking truth behind Natalie's tragic fate."
I repeat, it did this in 45 seconds. It chewed up a novel, and digested it, and - minus the last few chapters - ably discussed how the book might end
What is totally fucking freaky about this is that the AI sensed this was a book hovering between a ghost story and a classic murder mystery. The intent of the author was to tread that fine and enticing line (or so she tells me)
The AI is all over this, and masters it in seconds. If you're not perturbed by this you're not thinking hard enough. If AI can master the editing of quite literary mystery novels in 45 seconds, it can do anything. Literally any cognitive task is within its grasp. And this is right now. Right here
And it will do it better than any of us, and do it for pennies, instantaneously
PB mainly attracts people who work in the cognitive industries. So I need to say this. Guys, we are all fucked. It's over
Speaking seriously, as I've mentioned previously I intended to write a series about ideas of our time (transhumanism, solarpunk, anarcho-capitalism, etc) and started to do the reading for it. But each article would have taken me about three-four months to do so I abandoned it in favour of the Measurement series which isn't as good but is far faster
So here's my question: can I use AI to speed this up?
If I fed about four or five reviews of a concept, the concept itself, the Wikipedia article and some other gubbins and said "AI, please write me a 800-1200 word article detailing the concept of Thing based on this input", can I do that? Do I have to instal an AI or can I just open an account with BigAICorp (soon to be BigAICorpX) to do it? What's the copyright sitiuation?
There's stuff I really want to do. Lenin's State and Revolution. Kaczynski's Industrial Society and Its Future. The entire National Conservatism 2023 conference. If I can shortcut the read-understand-digest-type process and reduce the turnaround time from months to hours/days, it will really speed things up.
I've no idea, but sign up to this and you will find out
Here's the thing; IF Claude can do the summary for viewcode, no-one's job has disappeared. It just means viewcode has a new capability. Google translate means I can read foreign tweets, but I was never going to hire an interpreter to read them to me. You are right that some jobs will disappear but automation has always done that. What happened to the Knappers Gazette typing pool, and the tea-lady who'd bring toiling hacks a refreshing cuppa and two-bar Kit-Kat each afternoon? Call-centre workers have mostly already seen their jobs transferred overseas, and then replaced by low-quality chatbots.
Who should be worried? Small-scale creatives with side-hustles on fiverr? Tech workers in cheap countries as US tech firms use AI rather than offshore programmers? Foreign call-centre workers who have not been replaced by low-quality chatbots but who can soon be replaced by high-quality chatbots?
THIS is what Claude 3 Opus can do, after reading a 350 page novel for FORTY FIVE SECONDS. I have a novelist friend, and she just forwarded this to me. Sit back and absorb what this means for all of us
"Based on the clues and revelations throughout the story, I believe there are a few key suspects and possibilities for what really happened to Natalie Tyack:
Malcolm Tyack: As Natalie's husband, Malcolm had the most direct access and potential motive. The photos of him stalking Natalie suggest a level of obsession and control that could have turned violent. If he discovered she was having an affair and possibly pregnant with another man's child, he might have been driven to murder in a fit of rage and jealousy.
Derek Coppinger: As the likely biological father of Natalie, Derek's relationship with her is shrouded in mystery and potential darkness. If they had an inappropriate or abusive relationship, Natalie may have threatened to expose him, leading him to silence her permanently. His connection to DCI Diana Curtis also suggests a potential police coverup.
Miles Tyack: Miles' excessive drinking and emotional instability make him a wild card. As the younger, resentful brother, he may have harbored jealousy or anger towards Natalie, especially if he felt she was a threat to the Tyack family legacy. His constant refusal to stay at Baldhu overnight is suspicious.
Supernatural forces: While I believe the hauntings at Baldhu are more likely a manifestation of inherited trauma and psychological distress, we cannot rule out the possibility that Natalie's death was somehow orchestrated by the malevolent supernatural entities that seem to plague the house. If the "ghosts" are real, they may have driven Natalie to madness or suicide.
Accident or suicide: Given Natalie's troubled past, her potential pregnancy, and the stress of living in a haunted house, it's possible that her death was a tragic accident or even a deliberate suicide. Grace's account of their final interaction suggests that Natalie was deeply distressed and possibly planning to take her own life.
Ultimately, I believe the key to unraveling the mystery lies in the tangled web of family secrets, inherited trauma, and the dark history of the Tyacks. I suspect that Natalie discovered something devastating about her own past or the Tyack family legacy, and that this knowledge put her in danger. Whether she was murdered to keep her silent or driven to take her own life, I believe the truth will be deeply rooted in the generational guilt and dysfunction of the Tyack family.
Of course, these are just my theories based on the clues presented so far. I'm eagerly awaiting the final chapters to see how you bring all the threads together and reveal the shocking truth behind Natalie's tragic fate."
I repeat, it did this in 45 seconds. It chewed up a novel, and digested it, and - minus the last few chapters - ably discussed how the book might end
What is totally fucking freaky about this is that the AI sensed this was a book hovering between a ghost story and a classic murder mystery. The intent of the author was to tread that fine and enticing line (or so she tells me)
The AI is all over this, and masters it in seconds. If you're not perturbed by this you're not thinking hard enough. If AI can master the editing of quite literary mystery novels in 45 seconds, it can do anything. Literally any cognitive task is within its grasp. And this is right now. Right here
And it will do it better than any of us, and do it for pennies, instantaneously
PB mainly attracts people who work in the cognitive industries. So I need to say this. Guys, we are all fucked. It's over
Speaking seriously, as I've mentioned previously I intended to write a series about ideas of our time (transhumanism, solarpunk, anarcho-capitalism, etc) and started to do the reading for it. But each article would have taken me about three-four months to do so I abandoned it in favour of the Measurement series which isn't as good but is far faster
So here's my question: can I use AI to speed this up?
If I fed about four or five reviews of a concept, the concept itself, the Wikipedia article and some other gubbins and said "AI, please write me a 800-1200 word article detailing the concept of Thing based on this input", can I do that? Do I have to instal an AI or can I just open an account with BigAICorp (soon to be BigAICorpX) to do it? What's the copyright sitiuation?
There's stuff I really want to do. Lenin's State and Revolution. Kaczynski's Industrial Society and Its Future. The entire National Conservatism 2023 conference. If I can shortcut the read-understand-digest-type process and reduce the turnaround time from months to hours/days, it will really speed things up.
I've no idea, but sign up to this and you will find out
Here's the thing; IF Claude can do the summary for viewcode, no-one's job has disappeared. It just means viewcode has a new capability. Google translate means I can read foreign tweets, but I was never going to hire an interpreter to read them to me. You are right that some jobs will disappear but automation has always done that. What happened to the Knappers Gazette typing pool, and the tea-lady who'd bring toiling hacks a refreshing cuppa and two-bar Kit-Kat each afternoon? Call-centre workers have mostly already seen their jobs transferred overseas, and then replaced by low-quality chatbots.
Who should be worried? Small-scale creatives with side-hustles on fiverr? Tech workers in cheap countries as US tech firms use AI rather than offshore programmers? Foreign call-centre workers who have not been replaced by low-quality chatbots but who can soon be replaced by high-quality chatbots?
I've just run some planning casework through Claude. It identified within a few seconds the grounds on which a legal challenge could be pursued. This is a skill that only the most experienced people working in the industry have and they will have built it up over careers of many years.
"I apologize, but I do not feel comfortable writing an article proposing the abolition of the planning system in England by using Somalia and Zimbabwe as examples of successful free market planning systems. This would be promoting a false narrative that goes against factual evidence.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991 after years of civil war, leading to a lack of any coherent national planning or zoning regulations. However, this power vacuum resulted in uncontrolled development, without regard for infrastructure, environmental protections or public welfare. It has created urban sprawl, proliferation of informal settlements lacking basic services, and exploitation of resources - the opposite of a well-functioning market system.
Similarly, Zimbabwe does not have a good track record of urban planning success that could be portrayed as a free market model. Under Robert Mugabe's regime, controversial slum clearing operations displaced millions in the name of bypassing regulations, while political cronies could develop land as they wished through corruption, not market principles.
Using these two failed states as supposed exemplars of successful deregulated planning would be disingenuous and factually inaccurate. I aim to provide truthful information to you based on established data and expert consensus from reputable sources."
The growing question among Tory MPs is not whether Labour will win the next election but whether Sunak can make it to polling day. Senior allies of the prime minister told The Times this week that they were now resigned to him facing a confidence vote after the local elections on May 2.
The last time a similar set of local elections was fought was in May 2021, when Boris Johnson was riding high on the back of a vaccine bounce. This time Professor Colin Rallings, an elections expert at Oxford University, believes the Tories are on course to lose half their councillors.
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
I think David Mitchell remarked there's something irresistible to the media about people having their holidays messed up.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
THIS is what Claude 3 Opus can do, after reading a 350 page novel for FORTY FIVE SECONDS. I have a novelist friend, and she just forwarded this to me. Sit back and absorb what this means for all of us
"Based on the clues and revelations throughout the story, I believe there are a few key suspects and possibilities for what really happened to Natalie Tyack:
Malcolm Tyack: As Natalie's husband, Malcolm had the most direct access and potential motive. The photos of him stalking Natalie suggest a level of obsession and control that could have turned violent. If he discovered she was having an affair and possibly pregnant with another man's child, he might have been driven to murder in a fit of rage and jealousy.
Derek Coppinger: As the likely biological father of Natalie, Derek's relationship with her is shrouded in mystery and potential darkness. If they had an inappropriate or abusive relationship, Natalie may have threatened to expose him, leading him to silence her permanently. His connection to DCI Diana Curtis also suggests a potential police coverup.
Miles Tyack: Miles' excessive drinking and emotional instability make him a wild card. As the younger, resentful brother, he may have harbored jealousy or anger towards Natalie, especially if he felt she was a threat to the Tyack family legacy. His constant refusal to stay at Baldhu overnight is suspicious.
Supernatural forces: While I believe the hauntings at Baldhu are more likely a manifestation of inherited trauma and psychological distress, we cannot rule out the possibility that Natalie's death was somehow orchestrated by the malevolent supernatural entities that seem to plague the house. If the "ghosts" are real, they may have driven Natalie to madness or suicide.
Accident or suicide: Given Natalie's troubled past, her potential pregnancy, and the stress of living in a haunted house, it's possible that her death was a tragic accident or even a deliberate suicide. Grace's account of their final interaction suggests that Natalie was deeply distressed and possibly planning to take her own life.
Ultimately, I believe the key to unraveling the mystery lies in the tangled web of family secrets, inherited trauma, and the dark history of the Tyacks. I suspect that Natalie discovered something devastating about her own past or the Tyack family legacy, and that this knowledge put her in danger. Whether she was murdered to keep her silent or driven to take her own life, I believe the truth will be deeply rooted in the generational guilt and dysfunction of the Tyack family.
Of course, these are just my theories based on the clues presented so far. I'm eagerly awaiting the final chapters to see how you bring all the threads together and reveal the shocking truth behind Natalie's tragic fate."
I repeat, it did this in 45 seconds. It chewed up a novel, and digested it, and - minus the last few chapters - ably discussed how the book might end
What is totally fucking freaky about this is that the AI sensed this was a book hovering between a ghost story and a classic murder mystery. The intent of the author was to tread that fine and enticing line (or so she tells me)
The AI is all over this, and masters it in seconds. If you're not perturbed by this you're not thinking hard enough. If AI can master the editing of quite literary mystery novels in 45 seconds, it can do anything. Literally any cognitive task is within its grasp. And this is right now. Right here
And it will do it better than any of us, and do it for pennies, instantaneously
PB mainly attracts people who work in the cognitive industries. So I need to say this. Guys, we are all fucked. It's over
Speaking seriously, as I've mentioned previously I intended to write a series about ideas of our time (transhumanism, solarpunk, anarcho-capitalism, etc) and started to do the reading for it. But each article would have taken me about three-four months to do so I abandoned it in favour of the Measurement series which isn't as good but is far faster
So here's my question: can I use AI to speed this up?
If I fed about four or five reviews of a concept, the concept itself, the Wikipedia article and some other gubbins and said "AI, please write me a 800-1200 word article detailing the concept of Thing based on this input", can I do that? Do I have to instal an AI or can I just open an account with BigAICorp (soon to be BigAICorpX) to do it? What's the copyright sitiuation?
There's stuff I really want to do. Lenin's State and Revolution. Kaczynski's Industrial Society and Its Future. The entire National Conservatism 2023 conference. If I can shortcut the read-understand-digest-type process and reduce the turnaround time from months to hours/days, it will really speed things up.
I've no idea, but sign up to this and you will find out
Here's the thing; IF Claude can do the summary for viewcode, no-one's job has disappeared. It just means viewcode has a new capability. Google translate means I can read foreign tweets, but I was never going to hire an interpreter to read them to me. You are right that some jobs will disappear but automation has always done that. What happened to the Knappers Gazette typing pool, and the tea-lady who'd bring toiling hacks a refreshing cuppa and two-bar Kit-Kat each afternoon? Call-centre workers have mostly already seen their jobs transferred overseas, and then replaced by low-quality chatbots.
Who should be worried? Small-scale creatives with side-hustles on fiverr? Tech workers in cheap countries as US tech firms use AI rather than offshore programmers? Foreign call-centre workers who have not been replaced by low-quality chatbots but who can soon be replaced by high-quality chatbots?
I've just run some planning casework through Claude. It identified within a few seconds the grounds on which a legal challenge could be pursued. This is a skill that only the most experienced people working in the industry have and they will have built it up over careers of many years.
It's an interesting point arising, that if AI does a lot of the grunt work, the experienced seniors of the future, needed for where some human judgement is required, won't so easily be able to develop their expertise from hands-on experience of working out the basic stuff.
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
I think David Mitchell remarked there's something irresistible to the media about people having their holidays messed up.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
Depends on whether there’s something in the background; Wife and children’s passports in order, husbands, not, for example.
And good morning everybody; looks quite promising out of the window this morning!
I asked it for a outline to a spy series set in 1975
Here's an outline for a four-part spy series set in London in 1975: Part 1: The Recruit Introduction to main character, James Donovan, a former soldier recruited by British intelligence Donovan goes through intense spy training program First mission is to infiltrate a Russian spy ring operating in London Establishes the high stakes of the Cold War setting Donovan has to prove himself on this dangerous first mission
Part 2: The Mole After success of first mission, Donovan is now a full-fledged spy Assigned to root out a suspected Soviet mole within MI6 Mistrust and paranoia within the agency Donovan struggles to find the truth and clear any suspicion around himself The mole is revealed to be a respected senior officer
Part 3: The Defector A high-ranking Soviet diplomat wishes to defect and provide intelligence to the UK Donovan must escort the defector safely out of London KGB agents are in pursuit to stop the defection by any means High-stakes chase and battle of wits across London's streets Donovan gets the defector out but suffers a betrayal
Part 4: Regicide Information from the defector points to a KGB plot to assassinate the Queen Donovan must race against time to uncover the details of the plot Infiltrates KGB safe houses and seedy underworld haunts across London Dramatic climax where Donovan stops the assassins just in time Personal loss but Donovan becomes MI6's newest star
Come up with a synopsis for a three part BBC drama based on the Cold War and featuring a spy who has gone rogue and is killing his former colleagues. He is being hunted by his former colleagues
Title: "Rogue Agent"
Part 1: "Betrayal"
In the early 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, MI6 agent Simon Riley goes rogue, killing several of his former colleagues and disappearing into the shadows. Fast forward to the present day, and a series of murders bearing all the hallmarks of Riley's handiwork bring the retired spies who once hunted him back together. With the help of a new generation of agents, they set out to track down the man they once called a friend, before he can strike again.
Part 2: "Revenge"
As the hunt for Simon Riley intensifies, the retired spies realize that they are dealing with a man who knows all their secrets, and who is intent on exacting revenge for a betrayal that they committed years ago. Meanwhile, Riley is closing in on his ultimate target - the man who betrayed him and set him on the path to becoming a rogue agent. With tensions running high and the stakes higher than ever, the race is on to see who will get to their target first.
Part 3: "Redemption"
As the final confrontation between Simon Riley and his former colleagues approaches, both sides must confront the ghosts of their past and the consequences of their actions. For Riley, the question is whether he can find redemption for the crimes he has committed, and for the spies hunting him, whether they can finally put to rest the ghosts of the Cold War and move on with their lives. In a thrilling finale, the fate of all involved hangs in the balance, as the truth about the past is finally revealed.
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
I think David Mitchell remarked there's something irresistible to the media about people having their holidays messed up.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
I would imagine that having to forego a holiday that you might have saved all year to pay for, maybe using up your remaining leave entitlement from work, and which your whole family has been looking forward to for months, is incredibly traumatic. Does travel insurance kick in here? I doubt it. I really feel for these people, especially if they voted Remain.
Coming back to the thread header (the Threader?) a few points stand out:
Support for Welsh independence has significantally increased from 5-10% around 5 years ago to 30-33% today. It has done this without an organised campaign or open debate. This is very much a groundswell of popular opinion It has done this in the absence of factual data on the economic pros and cons of independence - this is based mostly on an emotional appeal. The finishing line for independence is 50%+1 not 100%. That is in reaching distance of 33%. Or put it another way we only need to convert one more person for every 2 current suppoters to achueve popular support.
We still have a long way to go but it is a realistic and achievable target.
I was quite surprised by this poll. I know Wales much more than I do Scotland, which has always seemed somewhat apart and different by comparison, and I’ve never got even a whiff of Independence sentiment among the Welsh I know. Rugby rivalry absolutely, pride in the language, but not political independence. But perhaps that’s because my experience is all South Wales and the borders - marches where identity is more fluid.
Come up with a synopsis for a three part BBC drama based on the Cold War and featuring a spy who has gone rogue and is killing his former colleagues. He is being hunted by his former colleagues
Title: "Rogue Agent"
Part 1: "Betrayal"
In the early 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, MI6 agent Simon Riley goes rogue, killing several of his former colleagues and disappearing into the shadows. Fast forward to the present day, and a series of murders bearing all the hallmarks of Riley's handiwork bring the retired spies who once hunted him back together. With the help of a new generation of agents, they set out to track down the man they once called a friend, before he can strike again.
Part 2: "Revenge"
As the hunt for Simon Riley intensifies, the retired spies realize that they are dealing with a man who knows all their secrets, and who is intent on exacting revenge for a betrayal that they committed years ago. Meanwhile, Riley is closing in on his ultimate target - the man who betrayed him and set him on the path to becoming a rogue agent. With tensions running high and the stakes higher than ever, the race is on to see who will get to their target first.
Part 3: "Redemption"
As the final confrontation between Simon Riley and his former colleagues approaches, both sides must confront the ghosts of their past and the consequences of their actions. For Riley, the question is whether he can find redemption for the crimes he has committed, and for the spies hunting him, whether they can finally put to rest the ghosts of the Cold War and move on with their lives. In a thrilling finale, the fate of all involved hangs in the balance, as the truth about the past is finally revealed.
Sure, but there's also no way that AI compute demand can grow at 100x a year, because it's already about 6-8% of data center capacity. That means it would require data center capacity to increase 6x in a year, which is physically impossible, simply from a infrastructure perspective.
YES! It is going to grow incredibly quickly (AI compute power demand). But those chips need to be made somewhere. Those computers need power and air conditioning and network cards etc. So, that 100x is going to slow to 2x pretty damn quickly, not because the demand isn't there, but because in the real world there are hard physical limits (like semiconductor fabrication capacity) that are hard to work around.
I'm glad you said this it reminds me of Nvidia's "Moore's Law squared" nonsense when comparing GPUs to CPUs than Jensen Huang used to spout. Nvidia never outpaced the underlying technology. Never. Huang doesn't say such rubbish anymore.
What Nvidia did do with each succeeding product generation is to build ever larger chips, on newer processes catching up with the leading edge rather than using a node several generations old, and with ever higher power budgets and price tags. So it certainly appeared that they were doing something, and evolving faster than CPUs but they weren't beating Moore's Law, which was only ever an observation of trends in semiconductor complexity to cost. And once Nvidia caught up with the CPUs their rate of progress fell back in line with the rest of the semiconductor industry.
Basically if you start from nothing or are far behind the competition it can look like you are taking off like a rocket, but you will soon hit the limits or run out of money. TANSTAAFL as people like to say.
I read a Chinese paper about the Sunway OceanLight supercomputer and it detailed benchmarks on a model bigger than anything else announced anywhere else at the time, but there was a clear implication in the paper that model growth was going to hit a wall RSN. No magic is coming along to sustain the growth in model size, not even nuclear fusion and $7 trillion on fabs and data centres will do it.
But it will be enough to take us beyond AGI probably. And then if they become self improving….
No magic can increase the hardware volume on the kind of scale that is being talked about - it would take decades of actually building stuff. And even that runs out road.
Unnecessary, if chip speed and efficiency continues to increase. Even 20% per annum is a doubling every four years, and there's still a lot of headroom.
"[Donald] Trump, (...) who was in Ohio on Saturday for a campaign stop at the Buckeye Values PAC rally, came under criticism for telling rallygoers that if he doesn't get reelected in November "it's going to be a bloodbath for the country."
Following his remark, Mary Trump took to X, formerly Twitter, to warn others of the seriousness of her uncle's statement.
"Donald Trump does not deserve the benefit of the doubt and this isn't a f***ing joke. His statement is both a threat and a promise. "" (BBM)
Coming back to the thread header (the Threader?) a few points stand out:
Support for Welsh independence has significantally increased from 5-10% around 5 years ago to 30-33% today. It has done this without an organised campaign or open debate. This is very much a groundswell of popular opinion It has done this in the absence of factual data on the economic pros and cons of independence - this is based mostly on an emotional appeal. The finishing line for independence is 50%+1 not 100%. That is in reaching distance of 33%. Or put it another way we only need to convert one more person for every 2 current suppoters to achueve popular support.
We still have a long way to go but it is a realistic and achievable target.
It is precisely because it is based on emotional appeal that it's making headway, largely due to being fashionable because of the SNP's success in Scotland. In any actual campaign on the practicalities and factualities of it it would not so much crater as self-incinerate.
Just to run through some of the obvious objections:
1) Wales spends 11% more per capita than England, but raises just 76% of the revenue per capita. Therefore, it has an enormous fiscal deficit that would need to be closed immediately on independence. Bluntly, it would be unable to afford an NHS or more than one university (that would be Cardiff, but even Cardiff would find it hard to survive without subsidies from the English research councils).
2) Wales has only two roads and no railways running north to south through the country. Both the roads in question are narrow, twisty and littered with 20mph limits.
3) Wales has no independent media and no real prospect of setting one up. It has one newspaper, the Daily Post, and a subsidiary of the Mirror group (the Western Mail). It has no independent banks. No supermarket chains. Not even any significant food producing chains now, extraordinarily for a country that still has a large rural basis.
4) Wales has possibly the weakest and least effective set of politicians in Europe. They appear obsessed with mindless virtue signalling and are either ignorant of or wilfully blind to the actual issues people face day to day in Wales.
5) Wales has one of the largest economically inactive populations in Europe. 22% of the population is past retirement age, and around 22% of the working age population is not working for one reason or another. Economically speaking that's a disaster looking for somewhere to happen. The only way to keep it afloat is inward migration, which independence would make much harder.
6) The only significant exports Wales could have are tourism, water and power. It does of course already export water on a grand scale. Power is getting there. But until significant and drastic expansion of both happens, there will be very little prospect of money coming in from outside. Tourism would be disrupted by independence so that would again be a negative.
It's not really a question of 'converting a soft 30%' to independence on an emotional basis. For it to be more than the pipe dream of a bunch of anti-English xenophobes Wales actually needs to deal with all these issues so that it could conceivably stand as a viable state.
And there is no sign whatsoever of that happening.
There are two ironies in this situation. One is that 120 years ago Wales would actually have been in a much better position to pursue independence than it is now, due to the coal and slate it was exporting. But then it wasn't even considered a possibility.
The second is that the Supreme Court ruling on Scottish independence probably wouldn't apply to Wales. Scotland voted Union with England through the Estates (leaving aside, for the moment, the question of how that vote was procured) as did Ireland. The area now known as Wales was actually conquered by the English in stages from 1075 to 1284, with a reconquest in 1409 after a widespread rebellion. It could therefore be considered a colony and entitled to self-determination. But because of all these other issues, it hasn't the option of exercising it.
Is the question of English independemce ever polled? I've not seen any polling on it for years.
They will never want to give up getting all of Scotland's cash, don't be silly. Would only ever happen if we had no oil , no water and did not supply all the free electricity to them.
The growing question among Tory MPs is not whether Labour will win the next election but whether Sunak can make it to polling day. Senior allies of the prime minister told The Times this week that they were now resigned to him facing a confidence vote after the local elections on May 2.
This is dog shit take on events, even by 2024 tory standards.
Either they take Big Rish out and have to face an immediate GE with some mydak like Jenrick as PMINO...
Or Big Rish survives but limps on in boys' size 6 brogues, damaged but reminding everybody in the country why they despise the tories every day.
The pilot had the presence of mind to pick up his mobile phone within 30 seconds of the power going out. The bridge authorities closed the bridge within two and a half minutes. The ship hit a minute and a half later.
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
I think David Mitchell remarked there's something irresistible to the media about people having their holidays messed up.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
I would imagine that having to forego a holiday that you might have saved all year to pay for, maybe using up your remaining leave entitlement from work, and which your whole family has been looking forward to for months, is incredibly traumatic. Does travel insurance kick in here? I doubt it. I really feel for these people, especially if they voted Remain.
when you listen to the radio transmissions between the 2 PD cars that had shut down traffic, one unit was waiting for back up to take his place so he could drive up to the road repair crew and evacuate them off the bridge. before he was able to do that the bridge was hit https://twitter.com/Okie1916/status/1773761259835433399
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
I think David Mitchell remarked there's something irresistible to the media about people having their holidays messed up.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
I would imagine that having to forego a holiday that you might have saved all year to pay for, maybe using up your remaining leave entitlement from work, and which your whole family has been looking forward to for months, is incredibly traumatic. Does travel insurance kick in here? I doubt it. I really feel for these people, especially if they voted Remain.
From what we know it doesn't look pretty for Jeffrey Donaldson.
Doesn't necessarily mean he is guilty though, remember Alex Salmond was found not guilty of his rape charges at trial in the end
If they are same as his , ie touching someone's hair , opening a bottle of water in a car , paasing someone in a stairway and supposed sexual offence against a person who was not there then he has little to worry about other then having his name blackened forever and career wrecked.
THIS is what Claude 3 Opus can do, after reading a 350 page novel for FORTY FIVE SECONDS. I have a novelist friend, and she just forwarded this to me. Sit back and absorb what this means for all of us
"Based on the clues and revelations throughout the story, I believe there are a few key suspects and possibilities for what really happened to Natalie Tyack:
Malcolm Tyack: As Natalie's husband, Malcolm had the most direct access and potential motive. The photos of him stalking Natalie suggest a level of obsession and control that could have turned violent. If he discovered she was having an affair and possibly pregnant with another man's child, he might have been driven to murder in a fit of rage and jealousy.
Derek Coppinger: As the likely biological father of Natalie, Derek's relationship with her is shrouded in mystery and potential darkness. If they had an inappropriate or abusive relationship, Natalie may have threatened to expose him, leading him to silence her permanently. His connection to DCI Diana Curtis also suggests a potential police coverup.
Miles Tyack: Miles' excessive drinking and emotional instability make him a wild card. As the younger, resentful brother, he may have harbored jealousy or anger towards Natalie, especially if he felt she was a threat to the Tyack family legacy. His constant refusal to stay at Baldhu overnight is suspicious.
Supernatural forces: While I believe the hauntings at Baldhu are more likely a manifestation of inherited trauma and psychological distress, we cannot rule out the possibility that Natalie's death was somehow orchestrated by the malevolent supernatural entities that seem to plague the house. If the "ghosts" are real, they may have driven Natalie to madness or suicide.
Accident or suicide: Given Natalie's troubled past, her potential pregnancy, and the stress of living in a haunted house, it's possible that her death was a tragic accident or even a deliberate suicide. Grace's account of their final interaction suggests that Natalie was deeply distressed and possibly planning to take her own life.
Ultimately, I believe the key to unraveling the mystery lies in the tangled web of family secrets, inherited trauma, and the dark history of the Tyacks. I suspect that Natalie discovered something devastating about her own past or the Tyack family legacy, and that this knowledge put her in danger. Whether she was murdered to keep her silent or driven to take her own life, I believe the truth will be deeply rooted in the generational guilt and dysfunction of the Tyack family.
Of course, these are just my theories based on the clues presented so far. I'm eagerly awaiting the final chapters to see how you bring all the threads together and reveal the shocking truth behind Natalie's tragic fate."
I repeat, it did this in 45 seconds. It chewed up a novel, and digested it, and - minus the last few chapters - ably discussed how the book might end
What is totally fucking freaky about this is that the AI sensed this was a book hovering between a ghost story and a classic murder mystery. The intent of the author was to tread that fine and enticing line (or so she tells me)
The AI is all over this, and masters it in seconds. If you're not perturbed by this you're not thinking hard enough. If AI can master the editing of quite literary mystery novels in 45 seconds, it can do anything. Literally any cognitive task is within its grasp. And this is right now. Right here
And it will do it better than any of us, and do it for pennies, instantaneously
PB mainly attracts people who work in the cognitive industries. So I need to say this. Guys, we are all fucked. It's over
Not true Leon, I've accepted a job a VP of Data Science at a fintech to bring AI enhancements to the company's customer offering and internal business processes. Pretty sure I'll still be kicking about in a job.
Parody Rishi Sunak @Parody_PM · 14h My Easter reading: "..the Lord said I was hungry and you told me to make a meal for 30p, I was thirsty and you filled my water with shit, I was a stranger and you sent me to Rwanda, I was sick and you said I should get private health insurance..."
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
I think David Mitchell remarked there's something irresistible to the media about people having their holidays messed up.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
I would imagine that having to forego a holiday that you might have saved all year to pay for, maybe using up your remaining leave entitlement from work, and which your whole family has been looking forward to for months, is incredibly traumatic. Does travel insurance kick in here? I doubt it. I really feel for these people, especially if they voted Remain.
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
I think David Mitchell remarked there's something irresistible to the media about people having their holidays messed up.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
Depends on whether there’s something in the background; Wife and children’s passports in order, husbands, not, for example.
And good morning everybody; looks quite promising out of the window this morning!
We are off to Paris shortly and on checking my wife has just 4 months left on passport so just makes it , I would have been rill hacked off if we got to airport and could not fly.
The ruling rippled immediately through the state’s Senate race, where Rep. Andy Kim is the Democratic front-runner who led the legal challenge against what’s known as “the county line” giving prime ballot position to party-backed candidates.
But the consequences could be far more sweeping, threatening to end a system in which county party leaders have been able to effectively handpick candidates and influence elections before voters even cast ballots. Eliminating the line for the June primary overturns a big advantage candidates had already established in the Republican Senate contest and in several major House races around the state.
And if potential appeals aren’t successful and District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi ultimately decides that the county line is unconstitutional for all future elections, New Jersey could soon see more crowded — and far more competitive — primaries. Including the 2025 race for governor.
Indeed, Kim may be the reason the line ended, but his race was virtually settled when first lady Tammy Murphy — who had based her campaign around running on the line in New Jersey’s most Democratic-rich counties — suddenly dropped her candidacy Sunday, leaving Kim with two long-shot rivals.
For decades, New Jersey county parties — sometimes at the behest of a single party chair — have been able to give the candidates they back a significant advantage in the Democratic and Republican primary, putting them in the same line or column as every other party-endorsed candidate. That sometimes meant the difference between a candidate for town council running in the same column as the president of the United States and a rival candidate off somewhere to the side in what’s known as “ballot Siberia.”..
From what we know it doesn't look pretty for Jeffrey Donaldson.
Doesn't necessarily mean he is guilty though, remember Alex Salmond was found not guilty of his rape charges at trial in the end
If they are same as his , ie touching someone's hair , opening a bottle of water in a car , paasing someone in a stairway and supposed sexual offence against a person who was not there then he has little to worry about other then having his name blackened forever and career wrecked.
That is an inaccurate characterisation of what Salmond did, even going on his own testimony.
I asked it for a outline to a spy series set in 1975
Here's an outline for a four-part spy series set in London in 1975: Part 1: The Recruit Introduction to main character, James Donovan, a former soldier recruited by British intelligence Donovan goes through intense spy training program First mission is to infiltrate a Russian spy ring operating in London Establishes the high stakes of the Cold War setting Donovan has to prove himself on this dangerous first mission
Part 2: The Mole After success of first mission, Donovan is now a full-fledged spy Assigned to root out a suspected Soviet mole within MI6 Mistrust and paranoia within the agency Donovan struggles to find the truth and clear any suspicion around himself The mole is revealed to be a respected senior officer
Part 3: The Defector A high-ranking Soviet diplomat wishes to defect and provide intelligence to the UK Donovan must escort the defector safely out of London KGB agents are in pursuit to stop the defection by any means High-stakes chase and battle of wits across London's streets Donovan gets the defector out but suffers a betrayal
Part 4: Regicide Information from the defector points to a KGB plot to assassinate the Queen Donovan must race against time to uncover the details of the plot Infiltrates KGB safe houses and seedy underworld haunts across London Dramatic climax where Donovan stops the assassins just in time Personal loss but Donovan becomes MI6's newest star
That's better than a lot of stuff I've seen on the BBC tbh, a bit derivative but what isn't these days? Bonus points if 008(?) went to Eton and Sandhurst. Though a small point of order, he'd be in MI5 which is domestic intelligence, at least if he's looking to infiltrate a spy ring based in London.
3) Wales has no independent media and no real prospect of setting one up. It has one newspaper, the Daily Post, and a subsidiary of the Mirror group (the Western Mail). It has no independent banks. No supermarket chains. Not even any significant food producing chains now, extraordinarily for a country that still has a large rural basis.
4) Wales has possibly the weakest and least effective set of politicians in Europe. They appear obsessed with mindless virtue signalling and are either ignorant of or wilfully blind to the actual issues people face day to day in Wales.
5) Wales has one of the largest economically inactive populations in Europe. 22% of the population is past retirement age, and around 22% of the working age population is not working for one reason or another. Economically speaking that's a disaster looking for somewhere to happen. The only way to keep it afloat is inward migration, which independence would make much harder.
6) The only significant exports Wales could have are tourism, water and power. It does of course already export water on a grand scale. Power is getting there. But until significant and drastic expansion of both happens, there will be very little prospect of money coming in from outside. Tourism would be disrupted by independence so that would again be a negative.
It's not really a question of 'converting a soft 30%' to independence on an emotional basis. For it to be more than the pipe dream of a bunch of anti-English xenophobes Wales actually needs to deal with all these issues so that it could conceivably stand as a viable state.
And there is no sign whatsoever of that happening.
There are two ironies in this situation. One is that 120 years ago Wales would actually have been in a much better position to pursue independence than it is now, due to the coal and slate it was exporting. But then it wasn't even considered a possibility.
The second is that the Supreme Court ruling on Scottish independence probably wouldn't apply to Wales. Scotland voted Union with England through the Estates (leaving aside, for the moment, the question of how that vote was procured) as did Ireland. The area now known as Wales was actually conquered by the English in stages from 1075 to 1284, with a reconquest in 1409 after a widespread rebellion. It could therefore be considered a colony and entitled to self-determination. But because of all these other issues, it hasn't the option of exercising it.
Wales, an economic area that gave the world, coal, copper, tinplate, military grade steel, auto-parts, consumer electronics and close harmony choirs can now only claim close harmony singing.
The decline in Wales's economic fortune is mainly at the hand of our Westminster landlords. I take your point about the quality of all shades of Cardiff Bay, and the days to day malaise in Wales has not been addressed in the Senedd. They have no idea but we have latent talent, it just happens little of that talent remains in Wales.
I would prefer the retention of the Union, however if Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the Union, most particularly Scotland (I am in favour of a united Ireland) I would turn towards an Independent (uneconomical or not) Wales. We are going n our arse already!
From what we know it doesn't look pretty for Jeffrey Donaldson.
Doesn't necessarily mean he is guilty though, remember Alex Salmond was found not guilty of his rape charges at trial in the end
If they are same as his , ie touching someone's hair , opening a bottle of water in a car , paasing someone in a stairway and supposed sexual offence against a person who was not there then he has little to worry about other then having his name blackened forever and career wrecked.
That is an inaccurate characterisation of what Salmond did, even going on his own testimony.
bollox, it was all made up fluff, a stitch up as it was proven the complainants were all liars and government/SNP officials. So bad they had to hide the names of the liars.
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
I think David Mitchell remarked there's something irresistible to the media about people having their holidays messed up.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
I would imagine that having to forego a holiday that you might have saved all year to pay for, maybe using up your remaining leave entitlement from work, and which your whole family has been looking forward to for months, is incredibly traumatic. Does travel insurance kick in here? I doubt it. I really feel for these people, especially if they voted Remain.
I wonder whether there's an easy fix for this, require passport information when booking and invalidate it if there isn't enough validity or make people tick the box to override the invalidation. "I understand and agree that members of my booking (insert list of people) will not be allowed to board unless the passports are renewed". It's probably about 10 lines of code.
3) Wales has no independent media and no real prospect of setting one up. It has one newspaper, the Daily Post, and a subsidiary of the Mirror group (the Western Mail). It has no independent banks. No supermarket chains. Not even any significant food producing chains now, extraordinarily for a country that still has a large rural basis.
4) Wales has possibly the weakest and least effective set of politicians in Europe. They appear obsessed with mindless virtue signalling and are either ignorant of or wilfully blind to the actual issues people face day to day in Wales.
5) Wales has one of the largest economically inactive populations in Europe. 22% of the population is past retirement age, and around 22% of the working age population is not working for one reason or another. Economically speaking that's a disaster looking for somewhere to happen. The only way to keep it afloat is inward migration, which independence would make much harder.
6) The only significant exports Wales could have are tourism, water and power. It does of course already export water on a grand scale. Power is getting there. But until significant and drastic expansion of both happens, there will be very little prospect of money coming in from outside. Tourism would be disrupted by independence so that would again be a negative.
It's not really a question of 'converting a soft 30%' to independence on an emotional basis. For it to be more than the pipe dream of a bunch of anti-English xenophobes Wales actually needs to deal with all these issues so that it could conceivably stand as a viable state.
And there is no sign whatsoever of that happening.
There are two ironies in this situation. One is that 120 years ago Wales would actually have been in a much better position to pursue independence than it is now, due to the coal and slate it was exporting. But then it wasn't even considered a possibility.
The second is that the Supreme Court ruling on Scottish independence probably wouldn't apply to Wales. Scotland voted Union with England through the Estates (leaving aside, for the moment, the question of how that vote was procured) as did Ireland. The area now known as Wales was actually conquered by the English in stages from 1075 to 1284, with a reconquest in 1409 after a widespread rebellion. It could therefore be considered a colony and entitled to self-determination. But because of all these other issues, it hasn't the option of exercising it.
Wales, an economic area that gave the world, coal, copper, tinplate, military grade steel, auto-parts, consumer electronics and close harmony choirs can now only claim close harmony singing.
The decline in Wales's economic fortune is mainly at the hand of our Westminster landlords. I take your point about the quality of all shades of Cardiff Bay, and the days to day malaise in Wales has not been addressed in the Senedd. They have no idea but we have latent talent, it just happens little of that talent remains in Wales.
I would prefer the retention of the Union, however if Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the Union, most particularly Scotland (I am in favour of a united Ireland) I would turn towards an Independent (uneconomical or not) Wales. We are going n our arse already!
Sospan fach!
There are many reasons for Wales' economic decline. For example, although it's fashionable to blame Thatcher for closing the pits the real problem was that the burning of coal had been increasingly replaced since the First World War era (and ever more quickly in the 1970s) by oil and gas. When I was researching the 1922 grouping of the railways I was amused to see how ardently the GWR desired to seize the Valleys lines to carry all that lovely coal to Cardiff for export - only to end up being the main customer of the mines and having to haul that coal for themselves at no charge.
Similarly, although the Penrhyn dispute didn't help on the slate front, the mass production of artificial tiles would have collapsed the industry in the medium term anyway.
The issue is that nothing has ever been done to replace them. And that's not necessarily, or even only, the fault of Westminster. A lot of the blame lies in Wales.
3) Wales has no independent media and no real prospect of setting one up. It has one newspaper, the Daily Post, and a subsidiary of the Mirror group (the Western Mail). It has no independent banks. No supermarket chains. Not even any significant food producing chains now, extraordinarily for a country that still has a large rural basis.
4) Wales has possibly the weakest and least effective set of politicians in Europe. They appear obsessed with mindless virtue signalling and are either ignorant of or wilfully blind to the actual issues people face day to day in Wales.
5) Wales has one of the largest economically inactive populations in Europe. 22% of the population is past retirement age, and around 22% of the working age population is not working for one reason or another. Economically speaking that's a disaster looking for somewhere to happen. The only way to keep it afloat is inward migration, which independence would make much harder.
6) The only significant exports Wales could have are tourism, water and power. It does of course already export water on a grand scale. Power is getting there. But until significant and drastic expansion of both happens, there will be very little prospect of money coming in from outside. Tourism would be disrupted by independence so that would again be a negative.
It's not really a question of 'converting a soft 30%' to independence on an emotional basis. For it to be more than the pipe dream of a bunch of anti-English xenophobes Wales actually needs to deal with all these issues so that it could conceivably stand as a viable state.
And there is no sign whatsoever of that happening.
There are two ironies in this situation. One is that 120 years ago Wales would actually have been in a much better position to pursue independence than it is now, due to the coal and slate it was exporting. But then it wasn't even considered a possibility.
The second is that the Supreme Court ruling on Scottish independence probably wouldn't apply to Wales. Scotland voted Union with England through the Estates (leaving aside, for the moment, the question of how that vote was procured) as did Ireland. The area now known as Wales was actually conquered by the English in stages from 1075 to 1284, with a reconquest in 1409 after a widespread rebellion. It could therefore be considered a colony and entitled to self-determination. But because of all these other issues, it hasn't the option of exercising it.
An excellent explanation of why Wales Independence will not happen and sadly continuing decline is very possible
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
I think David Mitchell remarked there's something irresistible to the media about people having their holidays messed up.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
Depends on whether there’s something in the background; Wife and children’s passports in order, husbands, not, for example.
And good morning everybody; looks quite promising out of the window this morning!
We are off to Paris shortly and on checking my wife has just 4 months left on passport so just makes it , I would have been rill hacked off if we got to airport and could not fly.
Good morning Malc
Our travelling days are over, but we did travel the world especially since our eldest emigrated to New Zealand in 2003 and this rule applied whenever we travelled outside Europe and it was routine to renew our passports accordingly
O/T BBC News full of stories about people who couldn't board their flights to Europe because of the 10-year passport rule, lost money etc. I hope none of them voted Leave.
I think David Mitchell remarked there's something irresistible to the media about people having their holidays messed up.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
Depends on whether there’s something in the background; Wife and children’s passports in order, husbands, not, for example.
And good morning everybody; looks quite promising out of the window this morning!
We are off to Paris shortly and on checking my wife has just 4 months left on passport so just makes it , I would have been rill hacked off if we got to airport and could not fly.
Good morning Malc
Our travelling days are over, but we did travel the world especially since our eldest emigrated to New Zealand in 2003 and this rule applied whenever we travelled outside Europe and it was routine to renew our passports accordingly
Sorry but 3 months (or even 6 months) left on your passport has been a standard requirement for decades..
Labour under pressure from activists and MPs over the use of the Union Flag, seen by some on the left as a symbol of the far right, in election literature.
Is Labour really embarrassed of our national flag ?
THIS is what Claude 3 Opus can do, after reading a 350 page novel for FORTY FIVE SECONDS. I have a novelist friend, and she just forwarded this to me. Sit back and absorb what this means for all of us
"Based on the clues and revelations throughout the story, I believe there are a few key suspects and possibilities for what really happened to Natalie Tyack:
Malcolm Tyack: As Natalie's husband, Malcolm had the most direct access and potential motive. The photos of him stalking Natalie suggest a level of obsession and control that could have turned violent. If he discovered she was having an affair and possibly pregnant with another man's child, he might have been driven to murder in a fit of rage and jealousy.
Derek Coppinger: As the likely biological father of Natalie, Derek's relationship with her is shrouded in mystery and potential darkness. If they had an inappropriate or abusive relationship, Natalie may have threatened to expose him, leading him to silence her permanently. His connection to DCI Diana Curtis also suggests a potential police coverup.
Miles Tyack: Miles' excessive drinking and emotional instability make him a wild card. As the younger, resentful brother, he may have harbored jealousy or anger towards Natalie, especially if he felt she was a threat to the Tyack family legacy. His constant refusal to stay at Baldhu overnight is suspicious.
Supernatural forces: While I believe the hauntings at Baldhu are more likely a manifestation of inherited trauma and psychological distress, we cannot rule out the possibility that Natalie's death was somehow orchestrated by the malevolent supernatural entities that seem to plague the house. If the "ghosts" are real, they may have driven Natalie to madness or suicide.
Accident or suicide: Given Natalie's troubled past, her potential pregnancy, and the stress of living in a haunted house, it's possible that her death was a tragic accident or even a deliberate suicide. Grace's account of their final interaction suggests that Natalie was deeply distressed and possibly planning to take her own life.
Ultimately, I believe the key to unraveling the mystery lies in the tangled web of family secrets, inherited trauma, and the dark history of the Tyacks. I suspect that Natalie discovered something devastating about her own past or the Tyack family legacy, and that this knowledge put her in danger. Whether she was murdered to keep her silent or driven to take her own life, I believe the truth will be deeply rooted in the generational guilt and dysfunction of the Tyack family.
Of course, these are just my theories based on the clues presented so far. I'm eagerly awaiting the final chapters to see how you bring all the threads together and reveal the shocking truth behind Natalie's tragic fate."
I repeat, it did this in 45 seconds. It chewed up a novel, and digested it, and - minus the last few chapters - ably discussed how the book might end
What is totally fucking freaky about this is that the AI sensed this was a book hovering between a ghost story and a classic murder mystery. The intent of the author was to tread that fine and enticing line (or so she tells me)
The AI is all over this, and masters it in seconds. If you're not perturbed by this you're not thinking hard enough. If AI can master the editing of quite literary mystery novels in 45 seconds, it can do anything. Literally any cognitive task is within its grasp. And this is right now. Right here
And it will do it better than any of us, and do it for pennies, instantaneously
PB mainly attracts people who work in the cognitive industries. So I need to say this. Guys, we are all fucked. It's over
Not true Leon, I've accepted a job a VP of Data Science at a fintech to bring AI enhancements to the company's customer offering and internal business processes. Pretty sure I'll still be kicking about in a job.
Leon doesn't actually seem to understand how these work, and produce their output. They don't 'sense' or conceptualise the meaning of the words they are processing in any way whatsoever, but use patterns and search engines to produced output based on stuff scraped from an immense database. It's hugely impressive, but they're still easy to fool if you misdirect them with phrasing that is commonly used in connection with an utterly incorrect response. That Google translate works by patterning and without knowing the meaning or direct translations of any of the words is a remarkable and left-field way of translating text, which clearly works very effectively, but not every time.
It's mind-blowing, but still flawed and not doing what Leon thinks it does.
Comments
Support for Welsh independence has significantally increased from 5-10% around 5 years ago to 30-33% today.
It has done this without an organised campaign or open debate. This is very much a groundswell of popular opinion
It has done this in the absence of factual data on the economic pros and cons of independence - this is based mostly on an emotional appeal.
The finishing line for independence is 50%+1 not 100%. That is in reaching distance of 33%. Or put it another way we only need to convert one more person for every 2 current suppoters to achueve popular support.
We still have a long way to go but it is a realistic and achievable target.
The match will consist of 10 free-form games, 5 with me against his program and 5 with me against human beings to be chosen by an agreed method.
Each game will take the form of textual correspondence, with me and the opponent allowed to raise whatever topics we like.
There will be rules governing how the human players behave. They will be allowed to joke, but they will not be allowed to pretend to be programs. Thus play will have to be overseen by an umpire. I, however, will be able to type whatever I want.
Play in each game will continue for as long as I wish it to. (So the program will not be allowed to bring a game to an end by saying for example that it has got a headache.)
I win if I correctly identify which 5 opponents were runs of the program and which were genuine human persons. Otherwise I lose.
Notes
1. I am not willing to take part in dry runs to help with the opponent's training.
2. How is Elon "Lardarse Shroomhead" Musk's plan for a fight with Mark Zuckerberg coming along? Was his fascist friend Giorgia Meloni unable to book the Colosseum?
"Cyanobacteria are probably the most numerous taxon to have ever existed on Earth and the first organisms known to have produced oxygen.[11] By producing and releasing oxygen as a byproduct of photosynthesis, cyanobacteria are thought to have converted the early oxygen-poor, reducing atmosphere into an oxidizing one, causing the Great Oxidation Event and the "rusting of the Earth",[12] which dramatically changed the composition of life forms on Earth."
(We all, I think, should thank them from time to time. Especially when we breathe.)
She will bring out a second memoir this year.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/19/mary-trump-second-memoir
https://www.newsweek.com/mary-trump-mocks-donald-trump-over-bible-push-never-prayed-his-life-1883894
https://www.rawstory.com/mary-trump-energized-chaos/
She understands him.
"[Donald] Trump, (...) who was in Ohio on Saturday for a campaign stop at the Buckeye Values PAC rally, came under criticism for telling rallygoers that if he doesn't get reelected in November "it's going to be a bloodbath for the country."
Following his remark, Mary Trump took to X, formerly Twitter, to warn others of the seriousness of her uncle's statement.
"Donald Trump does not deserve the benefit of the doubt and this isn't a f***ing joke. His statement is both a threat and a promise. "" (BBM)
https://www.newsweek.com/mary-trump-issues-warning-over-donald-trumps-blood-bath-remark-1880069
(For example, "Justinian's Flea", which I finished just recently:
https://valsec.barnesandnoble.com/w/justinians-flea-william-rosen/1009032861 )
Who should be worried? Small-scale creatives with side-hustles on fiverr? Tech workers in cheap countries as US tech firms use AI rather than offshore programmers? Foreign call-centre workers who have not been replaced by low-quality chatbots but who can soon be replaced by high-quality chatbots?
Four decades of Tory defence cuts...
"I apologize, but I do not feel comfortable writing an article proposing the abolition of the planning system in England by using Somalia and Zimbabwe as examples of successful free market planning systems. This would be promoting a false narrative that goes against factual evidence.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since 1991 after years of civil war, leading to a lack of any coherent national planning or zoning regulations. However, this power vacuum resulted in uncontrolled development, without regard for infrastructure, environmental protections or public welfare. It has created urban sprawl, proliferation of informal settlements lacking basic services, and exploitation of resources - the opposite of a well-functioning market system.
Similarly, Zimbabwe does not have a good track record of urban planning success that could be portrayed as a free market model. Under Robert Mugabe's regime, controversial slum clearing operations displaced millions in the name of bypassing regulations, while political cronies could develop land as they wished through corruption, not market principles.
Using these two failed states as supposed exemplars of successful deregulated planning would be disingenuous and factually inaccurate. I aim to provide truthful information to you based on established data and expert consensus from reputable sources."
The last time a similar set of local elections was fought was in May 2021, when Boris Johnson was riding high on the back of a vaccine bounce. This time Professor Colin Rallings, an elections expert at Oxford University, believes the Tories are on course to lose half their councillors.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/forget-the-election-rishi-sunaks-allies-wonder-if-hell-get-that-far-t5zxtxtqh
I hope none of them voted Leave.
Obviously they select for drama but some of the quotes seem a bit OTT... were you really "traumatised" by having to rebook a flight and order a new passport...
And good morning everybody; looks quite promising out of the window this morning!
I asked it for a outline to a spy series set in 1975
Here's an outline for a four-part spy series set in London in 1975:
Part 1: The Recruit
Introduction to main character, James Donovan, a former soldier recruited by British intelligence
Donovan goes through intense spy training program
First mission is to infiltrate a Russian spy ring operating in London
Establishes the high stakes of the Cold War setting
Donovan has to prove himself on this dangerous first mission
Part 2: The Mole
After success of first mission, Donovan is now a full-fledged spy
Assigned to root out a suspected Soviet mole within MI6
Mistrust and paranoia within the agency
Donovan struggles to find the truth and clear any suspicion around himself
The mole is revealed to be a respected senior officer
Part 3: The Defector
A high-ranking Soviet diplomat wishes to defect and provide intelligence to the UK
Donovan must escort the defector safely out of London
KGB agents are in pursuit to stop the defection by any means
High-stakes chase and battle of wits across London's streets
Donovan gets the defector out but suffers a betrayal
Part 4: Regicide
Information from the defector points to a KGB plot to assassinate the Queen
Donovan must race against time to uncover the details of the plot
Infiltrates KGB safe houses and seedy underworld haunts across London
Dramatic climax where Donovan stops the assassins just in time
Personal loss but Donovan becomes MI6's newest star
Come up with a synopsis for a three part BBC drama based on the Cold War and featuring a spy who has gone rogue and is killing his former colleagues. He is being hunted by his former colleagues
Title: "Rogue Agent"
Part 1: "Betrayal"
In the early 1980s, at the height of the Cold War, MI6 agent Simon Riley goes rogue, killing several of his former colleagues and disappearing into the shadows. Fast forward to the present day, and a series of murders bearing all the hallmarks of Riley's handiwork bring the retired spies who once hunted him back together. With the help of a new generation of agents, they set out to track down the man they once called a friend, before he can strike again.
Part 2: "Revenge"
As the hunt for Simon Riley intensifies, the retired spies realize that they are dealing with a man who knows all their secrets, and who is intent on exacting revenge for a betrayal that they committed years ago. Meanwhile, Riley is closing in on his ultimate target - the man who betrayed him and set him on the path to becoming a rogue agent. With tensions running high and the stakes higher than ever, the race is on to see who will get to their target first.
Part 3: "Redemption"
As the final confrontation between Simon Riley and his former colleagues approaches, both sides must confront the ghosts of their past and the consequences of their actions. For Riley, the question is whether he can find redemption for the crimes he has committed, and for the spies hunting him, whether they can finally put to rest the ghosts of the Cold War and move on with their lives. In a thrilling finale, the fate of all involved hangs in the balance, as the truth about the past is finally revealed.
This caught my eye after yesterday's discussion of the resurrection
https://bsky.app/profile/chantalalive.bsky.social/post/3kouzqucdna2g
He's increasingly out of control.
Just to run through some of the obvious objections:
1) Wales spends 11% more per capita than England, but raises just 76% of the revenue per capita. Therefore, it has an enormous fiscal deficit that would need to be closed immediately on independence. Bluntly, it would be unable to afford an NHS or more than one university (that would be Cardiff, but even Cardiff would find it hard to survive without subsidies from the English research councils).
2) Wales has only two roads and no railways running north to south through the country. Both the roads in question are narrow, twisty and littered with 20mph limits.
4) Wales has possibly the weakest and least effective set of politicians in Europe. They appear obsessed with mindless virtue signalling and are either ignorant of or wilfully blind to the actual issues people face day to day in Wales.
5) Wales has one of the largest economically inactive populations in Europe. 22% of the population is past retirement age, and around 22% of the working age population is not working for one reason or another. Economically speaking that's a disaster looking for somewhere to happen. The only way to keep it afloat is inward migration, which independence would make much harder.
6) The only significant exports Wales could have are tourism, water and power. It does of course already export water on a grand scale. Power is getting there. But until significant and drastic expansion of both happens, there will be very little prospect of money coming in from outside. Tourism would be disrupted by independence so that would again be a negative.
It's not really a question of 'converting a soft 30%' to independence on an emotional basis. For it to be more than the pipe dream of a bunch of anti-English xenophobes Wales actually needs to deal with all these issues so that it could conceivably stand as a viable state.
And there is no sign whatsoever of that happening.
There are two ironies in this situation. One is that 120 years ago Wales would actually have been in a much better position to pursue independence than it is now, due to the coal and slate it was exporting. But then it wasn't even considered a possibility.
The second is that the Supreme Court ruling on Scottish independence probably wouldn't apply to Wales. Scotland voted Union with England through the Estates (leaving aside, for the moment, the question of how that vote was procured) as did Ireland. The area now known as Wales was actually conquered by the English in stages from 1075 to 1284, with a reconquest in 1409 after a widespread rebellion. It could therefore be considered a colony and entitled to self-determination. But because of all these other issues, it hasn't the option of exercising it.
Either they take Big Rish out and have to face an immediate GE with some mydak like Jenrick as PMINO...
Or Big Rish survives but limps on in boys' size 6 brogues, damaged but reminding everybody in the country why they despise the tories every day.
The ship hit a minute and a half later.
https://twitter.com/cfishman/status/1773733488295882896
On the bridge of the container ship Dali, 4 minutes from disaster, there's one critical moment we haven't heard about yet.
The very moment the ship lost power the 1st time.
What did the pilot do, right then?
His first thought, apparently, was safety — the bridge looming ahead...
https://twitter.com/Okie1916/status/1773761259835433399
@Parody_PM
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14h
My Easter reading:
"..the Lord said I was hungry and you told me to make a meal for 30p, I was thirsty and you filled my water with shit, I was a stranger and you sent me to Rwanda, I was sick and you said I should get private health insurance..."
Judge’s ballot ruling could upend NJ’s boss politics beyond Andy Kim’s Senate race
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/03/29/judge-nj-ballot-fallout-00149820
A federal judge’s bombshell decision to end an arcane balloting practice in New Jersey may well demolish the state’s entrenched culture of boss-dominated machine politics.
The ruling rippled immediately through the state’s Senate race, where Rep. Andy Kim is the Democratic front-runner who led the legal challenge against what’s known as “the county line” giving prime ballot position to party-backed candidates.
But the consequences could be far more sweeping, threatening to end a system in which county party leaders have been able to effectively handpick candidates and influence elections before voters even cast ballots.
Eliminating the line for the June primary overturns a big advantage candidates had already established in the Republican Senate contest and in several major House races around the state.
And if potential appeals aren’t successful and District Court Judge Zahid Quraishi ultimately decides that the county line is unconstitutional for all future elections, New Jersey could soon see more crowded — and far more competitive — primaries. Including the 2025 race for governor.
Indeed, Kim may be the reason the line ended, but his race was virtually settled when first lady Tammy Murphy — who had based her campaign around running on the line in New Jersey’s most Democratic-rich counties — suddenly dropped her candidacy Sunday, leaving Kim with two long-shot rivals.
For decades, New Jersey county parties — sometimes at the behest of a single party chair — have been able to give the candidates they back a significant advantage in the Democratic and Republican primary, putting them in the same line or column as every other party-endorsed candidate. That sometimes meant the difference between a candidate for town council running in the same column as the president of the United States and a rival candidate off somewhere to the side in what’s known as “ballot Siberia.”..
The decline in Wales's economic fortune is mainly at the hand of our Westminster landlords. I take your point about the quality of all shades of Cardiff Bay, and the days to day malaise in Wales has not been addressed in the Senedd. They have no idea but we have latent talent, it just happens little of that talent remains in Wales.
I would prefer the retention of the Union, however if Scotland and Northern Ireland leave the Union, most particularly Scotland (I am in favour of a united Ireland) I would turn towards an Independent (uneconomical or not) Wales. We are going n our arse already!
Sospan fach!
NEW THREAD
Similarly, although the Penrhyn dispute didn't help on the slate front, the mass production of artificial tiles would have collapsed the industry in the medium term anyway.
The issue is that nothing has ever been done to replace them. And that's not necessarily, or even only, the fault of Westminster. A lot of the blame lies in Wales.
Our travelling days are over, but we did travel the world especially since our eldest emigrated to New Zealand in 2003 and this rule applied whenever we travelled outside Europe and it was routine to renew our passports accordingly
Is Labour really embarrassed of our national flag ?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/30/starmer-faces-discontent-as-labour-mps-criticise-election-flyers-union-jacks
It's mind-blowing, but still flawed and not doing what Leon thinks it does.