The Guardian list is.... weird. Maybe at 42 I'm out of touch with the 20 and 30 somethings of today. I've never heard anyone refer to eggs benedict as 'egg benny' though I can just about imagine Russell Brand calling it 'eggy benny.'
On marriage/relationships, I'm even less of an expert than TSE. It wouldn't surprise me if there were fewer divorces as fewer people are getting married. Perhaps it has become the exclusive lifestyle of those who are sure it's what they want. Young marriages (think Scott and Charlene) are increasingly rare. All this leaves a quandary. Either we have more children born outside of marriage where separation is more likely or fewer children altogether.
"Artisan Polish canned food containing the iconic pea soup with homemade sausage and bacon. Ed Red's canned foods contain restaurant meals prepared by chefs using only natural ingredients of the highest quality. They are perfect as a source of sustenance during longer mountain expeditions or camping trips"
Should I buy a can?
Mm, I see they also do tripe in tomato, lovage and marjoram.
That sounds revolting.
Portuguese tripe and beans is a classic. Lovage is gross, though. I would avoid.
The pea soup with sausage also sounds like a relative of the classic German military food cooked up in a mobile cooker - with carrots, potatoes, bacon and veg.
Edit: like Cullen skink parallels clam chowders.
Cullen skink is simply the Queen of soups. Even the tinned version by Baxter’s is excellent.
Cioppino, certes
Not had that. Looks like a good bouillabaisse, which is always enjoyable.
It’s better than bouillabaisse to my mind, tho the principle is the same. One of those coastal dishes where the fishermen chuck in all the weird fish and fish scraps that might get binned; cook them up with spice and tomatoes and garlic and wine - bingo
Also it’s really easy to make. I use this rick stein recipe
I add some fennel seeds, black mustard and a couple of finger chilies for heat
Getting good sourdough is vital
I’m a fan of fish soup anywhere that fresh fish is coming in for exactly that reason.
My late father in law used to help the fishermen unload their boats when he was a boy in Arbroath and get presented with a large sea bass for his troubles to take home. In those days there was no market for it and most of them went to cat food.
It’s satire, right? By someone who’s never been here.
I did wonder that. But if it is satire it is the Guardian satirising itself in an extremely clever and cruel way. Mocking its own posh faux-prole lefty wankiness. Having looked at the author’s other writings I don’t think he’s that sophisticated
My guess therefore is that this is “genuine” and an attempt at light humour which has failed calamitously
A few of the entries are close to your "sashnation" or whatever it was when Trump was shot at the first time.
e.g
Referring to the pandemic as the “panny d”. Referring to Sainsbury’s as “Sainy B” or “Sainos”.
But otherwise it's all beyond me.
The only one I can be accused of is: 36. A Dr Oetker pizza, a couple of cold ones and a nice bit of University Challenge.
But even that is telling. “A couple of cold ones” is an Americanism
What the article says is the guardian has no idea what Britishness is and is far too nervous to identify it with anything, anyway, so it seeks a lowest common denominator of cheap food and triviality and weird made up slang all framed with an ironic voice so it can avoid accusations of seriousness. And also it quietly despises the working class
I think you’re far too kind. The man’s a twat. Simple as.
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
If I had a marital home in central London there's one specific set of circumstances in which I can see myself "repeatedly using" a mate's penthouse also in central London. #justsaying
Seriously. Read that guardian article (if you can face intergalactic noncelord levels of cringe)
Quite something
I tried. I failed. It is indeed monumentally awful.
And yet, since it's clearly clickbait, it's also monumentally successful.
The guardian must be desperate for clicks if it is willing to publish articles that make everyone hate everything it stands for. The contempt on social media is significant
However, looking at the guardian’s dire financial situation maybe they ARE that desperate. I note they are selling the observer for pennies
Add in their fierce attacks on Starmer and something weird is happening at groaniad towers
Given the Guardian is owned by the Scott Trust, which has an £850 million trust fund specifically to keep it publishing left liberal articles it can survive even if massive losses and poor journalism from time to time
I’m not so sure anymore. The fact they are selling the observer is quite startling
The terms of the Scott Trust are quite clear that its close to a billion pounds worth is only to be used to keep the Guardian publishing left liberal articles whether the public want to read them in significant numbers or not. It is therefore immune to market forces whatever happens to its sister paper the Observer.
The Guardian editor is basically effectively a trust fund heir to a vast fortune who doesn't need to work or sell a product people actually want to buy as long as he complies with the term of his trust and gets his inheritance
I dunno. The Scott trust lost £50m last year taking it down to £1.2bn - largely because of losses at the guardian
At that rate they can run the guardian for another 20 years and they will then go bust
But I don’t think it works like that. No trust can tolerate losing 5% of its capital a year with no end in sight and inevitable death if nothing changes
I imagine there are now intense pressures on the guardian to stem the losses and start making £££ - not least because plenty of other papers -like the telegraph and the spectator and the NYT and the mail - are now making profits. It can be done
It can be and can cut some costs but it still has to retain its left liberal ethos to keep its trust fund and market immunity. Without it the Guardian would have gone out of business twenty years ago let alone have any prospect of even another twenty years
"Artisan Polish canned food containing the iconic pea soup with homemade sausage and bacon. Ed Red's canned foods contain restaurant meals prepared by chefs using only natural ingredients of the highest quality. They are perfect as a source of sustenance during longer mountain expeditions or camping trips"
Should I buy a can?
Mm, I see they also do tripe in tomato, lovage and marjoram.
That sounds revolting.
Portuguese tripe and beans is a classic. Lovage is gross, though. I would avoid.
The pea soup with sausage also sounds like a relative of the classic German military food cooked up in a mobile cooker - with carrots, potatoes, bacon and veg.
Edit: like Cullen skink parallels clam chowders.
Cullen skink is simply the Queen of soups. Even the tinned version by Baxter’s is excellent.
Cioppino, certes
Not had that. Looks like a good bouillabaisse, which is always enjoyable.
It’s better than bouillabaisse to my mind, tho the principle is the same. One of those coastal dishes where the fishermen chuck in all the weird fish and fish scraps that might get binned; cook them up with spice and tomatoes and garlic and wine - bingo
Also it’s really easy to make. I use this rick stein recipe
I add some fennel seeds, black mustard and a couple of finger chilies for heat
Getting good sourdough is vital
I’m a fan of fish soup anywhere that fresh fish is coming in for exactly that reason.
My late father in law used to help the fishermen unload their boats when he was a boy in Arbroath and get presented with a large sea bass for his troubles to take home. In those days there was no market for it and most of them went to cat food.
We used to get fish thrown to us on Berwick sea wall in the 1950s from the boats, and in particular mackerel, and it tasted wonderful
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
If I had a marital home in central London there's one specific set of circumstances in which I can see myself "repeatedly using" a mate's penthouse also in central London. #justsaying
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
In the Telegraph's case, his existence is probably enough to annoy them. Let alone his winning an election, especially since it was largely by default.
More generally, it's a fallow period. Too autumnal for silly season proper, but real politics hasn't really started again. So the press are reduced to putting out thin gruel like this, and speculating like crazy.
And someone in the Number Ten setup is happy to brief all kinds of unflattering gubbins to the press. I wonder who?
Seriously. Read that guardian article (if you can face intergalactic noncelord levels of cringe)
Quite something
I tried. I failed. It is indeed monumentally awful.
And yet, since it's clearly clickbait, it's also monumentally successful.
The guardian must be desperate for clicks if it is willing to publish articles that make everyone hate everything it stands for. The contempt on social media is significant
However, looking at the guardian’s dire financial situation maybe they ARE that desperate. I note they are selling the observer for pennies
Add in their fierce attacks on Starmer and something weird is happening at groaniad towers
Given the Guardian is owned by the Scott Trust, which has an £850 million trust fund specifically to keep it publishing left liberal articles it can survive even if massive losses and poor journalism from time to time
I’m not so sure anymore. The fact they are selling the observer is quite startling
The terms of the Scott Trust are quite clear that its close to a billion pounds worth is only to be used to keep the Guardian publishing left liberal articles whether the public want to read them in significant numbers or not. It is therefore immune to market forces whatever happens to its sister paper the Observer.
The Guardian editor is basically effectively a trust fund heir to a vast fortune who doesn't need to work or sell a product people actually want to buy as long as he complies with the term of his trust and gets his inheritance
The Guardian reported losses of £36.5m in its last financial year yesterday, although hilariously they call this "Adjusted net operating cash outflow" instead of losses. That's up from £22m the year before.
They could run out of money.
They could do eventually but their billion pound trust fund cushion keeps them going.
They could also invest some of the trust fund profits in the stock market or property to help fund the paper and the paper could charge for some online articles like the Mail and Telegraph do
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
Feel a bit sad for Lord Alli. From his Wikipedia entry he seems like a good man.
And for Lady S, one effect of all this (generalising from a sample of one) must have been to increase the number of people idly wondering how she looks with no clothes on, from the low hundreds into 7 or 8 figures. She must be pleased.
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
If I had a marital home in central London there's one specific set of circumstances in which I can see myself "repeatedly using" a mate's penthouse also in central London. #justsaying
He also regularly used Lord Alli's offices, so not as if that wasn't also an option for meetings.
Capping all salaries at the PM's level is one of the biggest problems we have in attracting and retaining major leadership talent in the public sector.
Firstly, the PM salary is paid *on top* of that of being an MP, so he's actually on 240k+, secondly there are perks and privileges to being PM, and third you can cream in a lot more with memoirs and speeches after leaving office. But in any event the 160k headline level is far too low for a PM/CEO/major leadership job and well below the market rate, which would be more like 400-600k, so you get real doughnuts in the public sector instead whilst the rest go into consultancy, private businesses or set up for themselves.
It's a little more nuanced than that. County Council Chief Executives, such as Terence Herbert at Surrey, will be on a high salary including by pension contributions. The issue isn't the CEO pay as such (there aren't many of them) but the high numbers of senior and middle managers who are on £100k and their numbers relative to the number of staff actually being managed.
Many Councils are over-managed in terms of having a disproportionately large number of senior and middle managers who fill the salary budget.
All the councils going bankrupt in next three years should sort this problem out nicely.
Trouble is that because councils aren't businesses, they don't get the business treatment for failure, which tends to include firing the layers of expensive idiots in suits that such organisations tend to accumulate.
Instead, bust councils tend to shed the useful boots on the ground and services people actually want in order to protect the untouchable management class as they wander from pointless meeting to pointless meeting.
Capping all salaries at the PM's level is one of the biggest problems we have in attracting and retaining major leadership talent in the public sector.
Firstly, the PM salary is paid *on top* of that of being an MP, so he's actually on 240k+, secondly there are perks and privileges to being PM, and third you can cream in a lot more with memoirs and speeches after leaving office. But in any event the 160k headline level is far too low for a PM/CEO/major leadership job and well below the market rate, which would be more like 400-600k, so you get real doughnuts in the public sector instead whilst the rest go into consultancy, private businesses or set up for themselves.
It's a little more nuanced than that. County Council Chief Executives, such as Terence Herbert at Surrey, will be on a high salary including by pension contributions. The issue isn't the CEO pay as such (there aren't many of them) but the high numbers of senior and middle managers who are on £100k and their numbers relative to the number of staff actually being managed.
Many Councils are over-managed in terms of having a disproportionately large number of senior and middle managers who fill the salary budget.
All the councils going bankrupt in next three years should sort this problem out nicely.
Trouble is that because councils aren't businesses, they don't get the business treatment for failure, which tends to include firing the layers of expensive idiots in suits that such organisations tend to accumulate.
Instead, bust councils tend to shed useful the boots on the ground and services people actually want in order to protect the untouchable management class as they wander from pointless meeting to pointless meeting.
See Birmingham City Council...public paying 20% more on their council tax bill for less services. All because the people at the top paid way over the top for a flawed IT system and stuck their heads in the sand about dealing with equal pay settlement.
I have sympathy for Starmer over the Arsenal thing. Whilst it may be inexplicable to us as to why anyone would want to support the Arsenal, it's his team and I'm sure his fandom is genuine, as with Sunak and Southampton. He can't sit in the stands due to security reasons. Watching football is escapism for lots of people and probably does the PM some good to have something else to focus on.
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
Feel a bit sad for Lord Alli. From his Wikipedia entry he seems like a good man.
And for Lady S, one effect of all this (generalising from a sample of one) must have been to increase the number of people idly wondering how she looks with no clothes on, from the low hundreds into 7 or 8 figures. She must be pleased.
Also, if you’re wife was really really really annoyed - for whatever reason - *innocent face* - one way of placating her might be giving her £50k of someone else’s money to spend on frocks
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
In the Telegraph's case, his existence is probably enough to annoy them. Let alone his winning an election, especially since it was largely by default.
More generally, it's a fallow period. Too autumnal for silly season proper, but real politics hasn't really started again. So the press are reduced to putting out thin gruel like this, and speculating like crazy.
And someone in the Number Ten setup is happy to brief all kinds of unflattering gubbins to the press. I wonder who?
Sky news are really turning up the dial on him with reporters asking cabinet ministers who has paid for their clothes and Burley this morning saying freebie frocks for Lady Starmer and pinching money from pensioners
I am sure some labour supporters are wanting to downplay this but apparently there is a lot of unease in the Labour Party and also with Sue Gray's performance at the heart of everything Starmer does
I am struggling to get indignant about this but that is a remarkable chart. He’s not just the highest, he is 2.5x the next highest.
No wonder the Tories are pissed.
As Sir Arnold Robinson put it in Yes, Prime Minsiter:
Government is fame and glory and importance and big offices and chauffeurs and being interviewed by Terry Wogan. Opposition is impotence and insignificance and people at parties asking you if you know Robin Day.
And the Conservatives have just entered opposition. Most of them won't have been there before.
"Artisan Polish canned food containing the iconic pea soup with homemade sausage and bacon. Ed Red's canned foods contain restaurant meals prepared by chefs using only natural ingredients of the highest quality. They are perfect as a source of sustenance during longer mountain expeditions or camping trips"
Should I buy a can?
Mm, I see they also do tripe in tomato, lovage and marjoram.
That sounds revolting.
Portuguese tripe and beans is a classic. Lovage is gross, though. I would avoid.
The pea soup with sausage also sounds like a relative of the classic German military food cooked up in a mobile cooker - with carrots, potatoes, bacon and veg.
Edit: like Cullen skink parallels clam chowders.
Cullen skink is simply the Queen of soups. Even the tinned version by Baxter’s is excellent.
Cioppino, certes
Not had that. Looks like a good bouillabaisse, which is always enjoyable.
It’s better than bouillabaisse to my mind, tho the principle is the same. One of those coastal dishes where the fishermen chuck in all the weird fish and fish scraps that might get binned; cook them up with spice and tomatoes and garlic and wine - bingo
Also it’s really easy to make. I use this rick stein recipe
I add some fennel seeds, black mustard and a couple of finger chilies for heat
Getting good sourdough is vital
I’m a fan of fish soup anywhere that fresh fish is coming in for exactly that reason.
My late father in law used to help the fishermen unload their boats when he was a boy in Arbroath and get presented with a large sea bass for his troubles to take home. In those days there was no market for it and most of them went to cat food.
I love the story, dunno if it is true or where I heard it, that a side effect of the invention of railways was people in inland towns complaining that (sea) fish no longer tasted of anything...
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
Feel a bit sad for Lord Alli. From his Wikipedia entry he seems like a good man.
And for Lady S, one effect of all this (generalising from a sample of one) must have been to increase the number of people idly wondering how she looks with no clothes on, from the low hundreds into 7 or 8 figures. She must be pleased.
Also, if you’re wife was really really really annoyed - for whatever reason - *innocent face* - one way of placating her might be giving her £50k of someone else’s money to spend on frocks
Hmmm…..Not entirely sure that would improve the situation. It could go really badly.
The Teamsters will not endorse any candidate for president ahead of November's election, the major US labour union announced on Wednesday, an unusual move for the group.
"After reviewing six months of nationwide member polling and wrapping up nearly a year of rank-and-file roundtable interviews with all major candidates for the presidency, the union was left with few commitments on top Teamsters issues from either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris—and found no definitive support among members for either party’s nominee," the union said in a statement.
No definite support....60/40 in US terms is about as definite as things get.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
I have sympathy for Starmer over the Arsenal thing. Whilst it may be inexplicable to us as to why anyone would want to support the Arsenal, it's his team and I'm sure his fandom is genuine, as with Sunak and Southampton. He can't sit in the stands due to security reasons. Watching football is escapism for lots of people and probably does the PM some good to have something else to focus on.
I’m sure it’s genuine too, but
1. Its the way he whines about it and 2. He can afford his own box if it’s that important
Again much of this would not matter if Starmer hadn’t been such a ceaseless Puritan hypocrite, condemning Tories endlessly for exactly this
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
I am struggling to get indignant about this but that is a remarkable chart. He’s not just the highest, he is 2.5x the next highest.
No wonder the Tories are pissed.
As Sir Arnold Robinson put it in Yes, Prime Minsiter:
Government is fame and glory and importance and big offices and chauffeurs and being interviewed by Terry Wogan. Opposition is impotence and insignificance and people at parties asking you if you know Robin Day.
And the Conservatives have just entered opposition. Most of them won't have been there before.
It’s worse than that. They weren’t even worth bribing when they were in office.
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
If I had a marital home in central London there's one specific set of circumstances in which I can see myself "repeatedly using" a mate's penthouse also in central London. #justsaying
As PM, you can get away with doing a bit of enriching yourself if the rest of the country is doing very nicely thank you. At the moment people haven't been, things like eating out and going to events have got very expensive, and it appears like a load of sin taxes are coming down the pipeline.
The big test is to find this magical increase in productivity, in growth and sort out of the public services.
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
In the Telegraph's case, his existence is probably enough to annoy them. Let alone his winning an election, especially since it was largely by default.
More generally, it's a fallow period. Too autumnal for silly season proper, but real politics hasn't really started again. So the press are reduced to putting out thin gruel like this, and speculating like crazy.
And someone in the Number Ten setup is happy to brief all kinds of unflattering gubbins to the press. I wonder who?
Yebbut who fallowed it? If this had been an "emergency budget" like in 2010 it would have happened over a month ago. It could have been today or tomorrow. It is in fact 6 weeks (SIX WEEKS) in the future. That's 6 weeks of ennui and frivolous sniping at Sir Klouseau Starmer. Political fucking genius.
I am struggling to get indignant about this but that is a remarkable chart. He’s not just the highest, he is 2.5x the next highest.
No wonder the Tories are pissed.
As Sir Arnold Robinson put it in Yes, Prime Minsiter:
Government is fame and glory and importance and big offices and chauffeurs and being interviewed by Terry Wogan. Opposition is impotence and insignificance and people at parties asking you if you know Robin Day.
And the Conservatives have just entered opposition. Most of them won't have been there before.
It’s worse than that. They weren’t even worth bribing when they were in office.
Still managed to steal £15 billion from the state. Puts Mrs Starmer's frocks into perspective.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
As PM, you can get away with doing a bit of enriching yourself if the rest of the country is doing very nicely thank you. At the moment people haven't been, things like eating out and going to events have got very expensive, and it appears like a load of sin taxes are coming down the pipeline.
The big test is to find this magical increase in productivity, in growth and sort out of the public services.
And by identifying planning reform as the key lever, I'm pretty sure they've passed level one.
Whether pulling that lever gets more stuff built, and whether that ungums the economy, and whether that pays off by 2028/9, that all remains to be seen.
But it's a start, and more promising than some other recent attempts. Starmer has already done 1.5 Trusses in the job.
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
As PM, you can get away with doing a bit of enriching yourself if the rest of the country is doing very nicely thank you. At the moment people haven't been, things like eating out and going to events have got very expensive, and it appears like a load of sin taxes are coming down the pipeline.
The big test is to find this magical increase in productivity, in growth and sort out of the public services.
And by identifying planning reform as the key lever, I'm pretty sure they've passed level one.
Whether pulling that lever gets more stuff built, and whether that ungums the economy, and whether that pays off by 2028/9, that all remains to be seen.
But it's a start, and more promising than some other recent attempts. Starmer has already done 1.5 Trusses in the job.
Planning reform was identified as an issue as far back as Big Dom days. And before that all the promises of build, build, build, army of loft laggers, etc. To date always got bogged down in red tape, vested interests and incompetence.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Capping all salaries at the PM's level is one of the biggest problems we have in attracting and retaining major leadership talent in the public sector.
Firstly, the PM salary is paid *on top* of that of being an MP, so he's actually on 240k+, secondly there are perks and privileges to being PM, and third you can cream in a lot more with memoirs and speeches after leaving office. But in any event the 160k headline level is far too low for a PM/CEO/major leadership job and well below the market rate, which would be more like 400-600k, so you get real doughnuts in the public sector instead whilst the rest go into consultancy, private businesses or set up for themselves.
Rounding it is £91K for being an MP plus £75K for being PM although he could claim £81K if he wanted to but nothing like £240+K
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
In related news.
Michael Bronstein, Oxford prof + one of the world’s leading experts in protein design, has been given £150mn to set up an AI for biodesign lab in Austria
The US equivalent (IPD) has spun out billions of $
I am struggling to get indignant about this but that is a remarkable chart. He’s not just the highest, he is 2.5x the next highest.
No wonder the Tories are pissed.
As Sir Arnold Robinson put it in Yes, Prime Minsiter:
Government is fame and glory and importance and big offices and chauffeurs and being interviewed by Terry Wogan. Opposition is impotence and insignificance and people at parties asking you if you know Robin Day.
And the Conservatives have just entered opposition. Most of them won't have been there before.
It’s worse than that. They weren’t even worth bribing when they were in office.
Still managed to steal £15 billion from the state. Puts Mrs Starmer's frocks into perspective.
Why not go to Tesco's tomorrow and shoplift say £100 worth of groceries?
I'm not advocating this, but the security guards and/or police may help you in putting your "puts some other bit of dishonesty into perspective" argument, into perspective.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
In related news.
Michael Bronstein, Oxford prof + one of the world’s leading experts in protein design, has been given £150mn to set up an AI for biodesign lab in Austria
The US equivalent (IPD) has spun out billions of $
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Reason for this downturn?
It's difficult to say, but I have noticed it since the beginning of August which coincides with all of the doom and gloom coming from the government. Though the two may not be related. I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses and the blank cheques have definitely stopped for companies "leveraging AI".
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
Crikey. They are really going for him
What’s he done to annoy all of Fleet Street?
That said this doesn’t look as bad as clobbergate
If I had a marital home in central London there's one specific set of circumstances in which I can see myself "repeatedly using" a mate's penthouse also in central London. #justsaying
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
In related news.
Michael Bronstein, Oxford prof + one of the world’s leading experts in protein design, has been given £150mn to set up an AI for biodesign lab in Austria
The US equivalent (IPD) has spun out billions of $
Re: the conversation a few days ago about Tim Hortons, I have ventured out to a UK branch en route elsewhere. They sell breakfast for £1 if you buy a drink.
So, small coffee (£2.29) and "Big breakfast wrap" and hash brown. Total £3.29, and 750 calories. Might be the best value breakfast in the UK. Taste 8/10. Decent.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
In related news.
Michael Bronstein, Oxford prof + one of the world’s leading experts in protein design, has been given £150mn to set up an AI for biodesign lab in Austria
The US equivalent (IPD) has spun out billions of $
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Reason for this downturn?
It's difficult to say, but I have noticed it since the beginning of August which coincides with all of the doom and gloom coming from the government. Though the two may not be related. I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses and the blank cheques have definitely stopped for companies "leveraging AI".
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
"I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses"
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Reason for this downturn?
It's difficult to say, but I have noticed it since the beginning of August which coincides with all of the doom and gloom coming from the government. Though the two may not be related. I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses and the blank cheques have definitely stopped for companies "leveraging AI".
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
And interest rates have been high for a while now around the West. But balance sheets are generally fairly healthy. I think there’s a reasonable prospect of decent business investment the next decade or so. Except in Germany which feels like it’s in danger of entering a bit of a lost decade.
I wonder how many people under a certain age asked today "What's a walkie talkie?"
Or, indeed, "What's a pager?"
I used to drink in a pub across the road from a hospital. Several times each evening a bleeper would go off, whereupon the owner would stand up, down his pint, and stagger across to deal with whatever emergency required his presence. All too often he'd reappear after half an hour covered in blood.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Reason for this downturn?
It's difficult to say, but I have noticed it since the beginning of August which coincides with all of the doom and gloom coming from the government. Though the two may not be related. I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses and the blank cheques have definitely stopped for companies "leveraging AI".
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
"I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses"
The issue for Starmer isn't that he is getting a load of freebies, it is he made an absolute massive play on he was only in it for the public service, always country before party, cronyism has to end....
100x
And he knew all this was likely to come out after (or before) the election but kept at the hypocrisy.
They need some proper good news stories soon otherwise they are setting the scene for the next 5 years. Hard to get the publics confidence back once you’ve lost it.
On topic. Isn't the argument not the societal claim among all but the most ideological left-wingers, but rather what the state can or should do and whether it is correlation or causation?
We all know the ideal situation is the security of a happy marriage or similar agreements. The question 'family values' policy always fails to answer is whether those who struggle, either financially or because they're not suited, should be pushed into staying together by committing, or whether we need to help people into a better place where that's an easier option of its own accord.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Reason for this downturn?
It's difficult to say, but I have noticed it since the beginning of August which coincides with all of the doom and gloom coming from the government. Though the two may not be related. I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses and the blank cheques have definitely stopped for companies "leveraging AI".
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
"I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses"
I find it surprising that companies are saying their employees are getting nothing from using these LLM products. Just for aiding the writing of reports, emails, etc I find them incredibly useful, let alone all code assistance, fixing errors, spinning up visualisations.
The hype about o1 "thinking" is nonsense, but for crunching / improving tedious stuff they are unbelievably useful.
It’s satire, right? By someone who’s never been here.
I did wonder that. But if it is satire it is the Guardian satirising itself in an extremely clever and cruel way. Mocking its own posh faux-prole lefty wankiness. Having looked at the author’s other writings I don’t think he’s that sophisticated
My guess therefore is that this is “genuine” and an attempt at light humour which has failed calamitously
A few of the entries are close to your "sashnation" or whatever it was when Trump was shot at the first time.
e.g
Referring to the pandemic as the “panny d”. Referring to Sainsbury’s as “Sainy B” or “Sainos”.
But otherwise it's all beyond me.
The only one I can be accused of is: 36. A Dr Oetker pizza, a couple of cold ones and a nice bit of University Challenge.
But even that is telling. “A couple of cold ones” is an Americanism
What the article says is the guardian has no idea what Britishness is and is far too nervous to identify it with anything, anyway, so it seeks a lowest common denominator of cheap food and triviality and weird made up slang all framed with an ironic voice so it can avoid accusations of seriousness. And also it quietly despises the working class
Naturlich. Everybody knows that UKers like their beer to be the temperature of lukewarm piss.
All lukewarm liquids are lukewarm. English beer at cellar temperature is a lot cooler than lukewarm. When your national drink is made in Missouri and mislabeled as Bohemian, chilling the shit out of it is indeed your least worst option.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
In related news.
Michael Bronstein, Oxford prof + one of the world’s leading experts in protein design, has been given £150mn to set up an AI for biodesign lab in Austria
The US equivalent (IPD) has spun out billions of $
The last government did, I think the new one cut the programme. It's a bit depressing really.
It's fair to say that the results for AI in drug development have been, so far, unimpressive - but that doesn't mean it will continue to be so. Part of the solution will be getting the right data to train it on, and asking the right questions. Guys like Bronstein are likely to be a necessary part of that.
These worry me though as the worst thing the Harris campaign can do is get cocky. They've been very successful so far by being focused on punching Trump and Vance in the goolies by focusing on what key voters hate about them. Ease up and take any vote for granted and there's every chance he springs a surprise by turning some odd voters out.
I am struggling to get indignant about this but that is a remarkable chart. He’s not just the highest, he is 2.5x the next highest.
No wonder the Tories are pissed.
As Sir Arnold Robinson put it in Yes, Prime Minsiter:
Government is fame and glory and importance and big offices and chauffeurs and being interviewed by Terry Wogan. Opposition is impotence and insignificance and people at parties asking you if you know Robin Day.
And the Conservatives have just entered opposition. Most of them won't have been there before.
It’s worse than that. They weren’t even worth bribing when they were in office.
Still managed to steal £15 billion from the state. Puts Mrs Starmer's frocks into perspective.
Why not go to Tesco's tomorrow and shoplift say £100 worth of groceries?
I'm not advocating this, but the security guards and/or police may help you in putting your "puts some other bit of dishonesty into perspective" argument, into perspective.
Mrs Starmer didn't actually steal the frocks. In fact they didn't break any rules as they don't apply unless you are a minister in government, which they weren't at the time. People of a puritanical bent, of which I admit to being one, might think it's a lot of freebies, but that's all there is it to it. There's my perspective, which you don't appear to possess.
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
He held some meetings there? Wow. I mean, the monetary value of that must get into... what? Four figures?
Yeah... this one is pretty weak sauce.
As pointed out below or above, depending, you don't have meetings (except of a narrowly defined sort) in penthouses, when proper offices are also on offer.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
In related news.
Michael Bronstein, Oxford prof + one of the world’s leading experts in protein design, has been given £150mn to set up an AI for biodesign lab in Austria
The US equivalent (IPD) has spun out billions of $
The last government did, I think the new one cut the programme. It's a bit depressing really.
It's fair to say that the results for AI in drug development have been, so far, unimpressive - but that doesn't mean it will continue to be so. Part of the solution will be getting the right data to train it on, and asking the right questions. Guys like Bronstein are likely to be a necessary part of that.
It also depends if you think Graph Neural Networks, which is a field he has been pushing hard, are the right solution.
"A Vance spokesperson provided WSJ w/ a police report in which a resident had claimed her pet might have been taken by Haitian neighbors. But when a reporter went to Anna Kilgore’s house Tuesday evening, she said her cat ... which went missing in late August, had actually returned a few days later—found safe in her own basement." https://x.com/greg_ip/status/1836385806681788428
EXC: Keir Starmer repeatedly used an £18 million penthouse owned by the Labour donor Lord Alli before entering No10
Starmer was at the 5,000 sq ft London home on election night for the exit poll. Also held meetings there.
He held some meetings there? Wow. I mean, the monetary value of that must get into... what? Four figures?
Yeah... this one is pretty weak sauce.
As pointed out below or above, depending, you don't have meetings (except of a narrowly defined sort) in penthouses, when proper offices are also on offer.
I wonder how many people under a certain age asked today "What's a walkie talkie?"
Or, indeed, "What's a pager?"
I used to drink in a pub across the road from a hospital. Several times each evening a bleeper would go off, whereupon the owner would stand up, down his pint, and stagger across to deal with whatever emergency required his presence. All too often he'd reappear after half an hour covered in blood.
(I made up that last sentence.)
My mum had a bleeper in the 70s because she was working in a hospital at the time. Must have seemed very high-tech at the time.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Reason for this downturn?
It's difficult to say, but I have noticed it since the beginning of August which coincides with all of the doom and gloom coming from the government. Though the two may not be related. I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses and the blank cheques have definitely stopped for companies "leveraging AI".
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
"I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses"
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Reason for this downturn?
It's difficult to say, but I have noticed it since the beginning of August which coincides with all of the doom and gloom coming from the government. Though the two may not be related. I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses and the blank cheques have definitely stopped for companies "leveraging AI".
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
"I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses"
One part of the article I find slightly strange is the claims that no route to profitability. Sure they are losing a lot of money now charging $30 a month, but companies happily spend $100s per month on all sorts of things for employees. If it did allow you to even conservatively do the same job with 2/3's the same number of people, $5-10k a year for ChatGPT+++++ per employee is still well worth it.
"A Vance spokesperson provided WSJ w/ a police report in which a resident had claimed her pet might have been taken by Haitian neighbors. But when a reporter went to Anna Kilgore’s house Tuesday evening, she said her cat ... which went missing in late August, had actually returned a few days later—found safe in her own basement." https://x.com/greg_ip/status/1836385806681788428
After Vance's cat lady idiocy, could the Springfield lies turn out to be Apocalypse Meouw for him ?
I am struggling to get indignant about this but that is a remarkable chart. He’s not just the highest, he is 2.5x the next highest.
No wonder the Tories are pissed.
As Sir Arnold Robinson put it in Yes, Prime Minsiter:
Government is fame and glory and importance and big offices and chauffeurs and being interviewed by Terry Wogan. Opposition is impotence and insignificance and people at parties asking you if you know Robin Day.
And the Conservatives have just entered opposition. Most of them won't have been there before.
It’s worse than that. They weren’t even worth bribing when they were in office.
Still managed to steal £15 billion from the state. Puts Mrs Starmer's frocks into perspective.
Why not go to Tesco's tomorrow and shoplift say £100 worth of groceries?
I'm not advocating this, but the security guards and/or police may help you in putting your "puts some other bit of dishonesty into perspective" argument, into perspective.
Mrs Starmer didn't actually steal the frocks. In fact they didn't break any rules as they don't apply unless you are a minister in government, which they weren't at the time. People of a puritanical bent, of which I admit to being one, might think it's a lot of freebies, but that's all there is it to it. There's my perspective, which you don't appear to possess.
I would try to explain "analogy" but I can't think of any way of doing so except by way of analogy. Loops is loops.
From Trump / Vance perspective, all this focus on the dodgy eating pets story is weird, they have an open goal on the shear number of people illegally crossing both North and South borders, they don't need to jump on invented stories. The real facts are bad enough story for the current administration.
This was a good video from Peter Santenello (a very milk toast guy who travels around reporting all over the place) on the madness of the situation on the Canada border.
Iranian hackers distributed hacked information about Donald Trump's electoral campaign to people linked to the Biden campaign, according to the FBI and US intelligence agencies.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Reason for this downturn?
It's difficult to say, but I have noticed it since the beginning of August which coincides with all of the doom and gloom coming from the government. Though the two may not be related. I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses and the blank cheques have definitely stopped for companies "leveraging AI".
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
"I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses"
I find it surprising that companies are saying their employees are getting nothing from using these LLM products. Just for aiding the writing of reports, emails, etc I find them incredibly useful, let alone all code assistance, fixing errors, spinning up visualisations.
The hype about o1 "thinking" is nonsense, but for crunching / improving tedious stuff they are unbelievably useful.
The Big Wheels bought the bullshit about getting rid of all the staff and having a hedge fund that did stuff for them.
The reality is that they are proud owners of travesty generators and code completion tools. Incrementally useful for a number of things. But you can't fire everyone this week.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Reason for this downturn?
It's difficult to say, but I have noticed it since the beginning of August which coincides with all of the doom and gloom coming from the government. Though the two may not be related. I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses and the blank cheques have definitely stopped for companies "leveraging AI".
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
"I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses"
I find it surprising that companies are saying their employees are getting nothing from using these LLM products. Just for aiding the writing of reports, emails, etc I find them incredibly useful, let alone all code assistance, fixing errors, spinning up visualisations.
The hype about o1 "thinking" is nonsense, but for crunching / improving tedious stuff they are unbelievably useful.
The Big Wheels bought the bullshit about getting rid of all the staff and having a hedge fund that did stuff for them.
The reality is that they are proud owners of travesty generators and code completion tools. Incrementally useful for a number of things. But you can't fire everyone this week.
You are saying that far too many people running these companies are like Leon?
Iranian hackers distributed hacked information about Donald Trump's electoral campaign to people linked to the Biden campaign, according to the FBI and US intelligence agencies.
Or, as the article suggests, to stir up shit. The likelihood is that they hacked the Trump campaign simply because its data security is poor.
Recall that various U.S. media outlets were also sent hacked material from the Trump campaign, which they have not published.
Hmm, we've just had a company wide email this evening in prep for tomorrow - new hiring freeze in the UK and we're opening up an office in Australia to better serve APAC customers which is where the investment will go for the coming year. CEO and VP of People to explain to department heads tomorrow morning what that means and how long it will last for. Luckily I've just completed my basic hiring in my team so from two people we're now six which is probably enough to last the next year or so but it does mean some of the ML models we wanted to do get kicked into next financial year because I've only got analysts and analytics engineers in my team and no data scientists.
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
Reason for this downturn?
It's difficult to say, but I have noticed it since the beginning of August which coincides with all of the doom and gloom coming from the government. Though the two may not be related. I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses and the blank cheques have definitely stopped for companies "leveraging AI".
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
"I think there's also a general reassessment of how much value AI is actually going to drive for businesses"
I find it surprising that companies are saying their employees are getting nothing from using these LLM products. Just for aiding the writing of reports, emails, etc I find them incredibly useful, let alone all code assistance, fixing errors, spinning up visualisations.
The hype about o1 "thinking" is nonsense, but for crunching / improving tedious stuff they are unbelievably useful.
The Big Wheels bought the bullshit about getting rid of all the staff and having a hedge fund that did stuff for them.
The reality is that they are proud owners of travesty generators and code completion tools. Incrementally useful for a number of things. But you can't fire everyone this week.
You are saying that far too many people running these companies are like Leon?
Excitable, and explode with enthusiasm at the latest bullshit bingo?
RFK Jr. says he’s helping Trump pick leaders of FDA, NIH, CDC
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4887585-rfk-jr-trump-fda-nih-cdc/ Former independent presidential candidate and antivaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that former President Trump wants him to choose leaders for key public health agencies if he wins the election in November. ..
Some X users in Brazil have said they can once again access the social media website, the BBC has learned.
This comes after the platform, formerly known as Twitter, was banned in the country on 31 August.
The change was made possible after the company, which is owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, moved their service to servers hosted by Cloudflare, according to ABRINT, the country's leading trade group for Internet Service Providers (ISP).
The change makes it much harder to block applications on phones, the trade group said.
From Trump / Vance perspective, all this focus on the dodgy eating pets story is weird, they have an open goal on the shear number of people illegally crossing both North and South borders, they don't need to jump on invented stories. The real facts are bad enough story for the current administration.
This was a good video from Peter Santenello (a very milk toast guy who travels around reporting all over the place) on the madness of the situation on the Canada border.
You cross illegally, you ring border patrol, they pick you up, process you, then you are free to go legally, court date sometime in 5 years.
Yes, but as with the right here, the question is how you talk about it. Talk about it in reasonable tones and sound like the people talking common sense and highlighting problems and you'll grab the issue from your opponents and force them onto your ground.
The problem with Trump and Vance is that they are two very online men living in an echo chamber whereby the big concerns about illegal immigration aren't the reasonable practical difficulties, but mad stories about eating pets and far right conspiracy theories.
That's not to say lots won't vote for them if are pissed off about the issue and see as tough, just sounding mad pushes lots of others in the other direction.
As we saw with the Tory efforts to turn it into a defining issue here - which turned an area that should have been a rare win into a carnival of chaos where right-wing voters thought they were delusional and full of crap, and left/liberal voters thought they were behaving like ogreish fascists.
The US is too polarised for a similar thing, but sounding like drunken frat boy racists could well drive Democrat turnout while hardly convincing they're the guys to sort things out if you are an independent who's annoyed at migration problems.
"Kemi Badenoch: I went from middle class to working class after McDonald’s job
The Conservative Party leadership contender claimed serving burgers and cleaning toilets alongside single parents at the fast-food chain gave her ‘humility’"
"A Vance spokesperson provided WSJ w/ a police report in which a resident had claimed her pet might have been taken by Haitian neighbors. But when a reporter went to Anna Kilgore’s house Tuesday evening, she said her cat ... which went missing in late August, had actually returned a few days later—found safe in her own basement." https://x.com/greg_ip/status/1836385806681788428
After Vance's cat lady idiocy, could the Springfield lies turn out to be Apocalypse Meouw for him ?
I wonder how many people under a certain age asked today "What's a walkie talkie?"
Has Jezza tweeted to accuse Israel of crimes against... his "friends" yet?
There was a Western journalist who tweeted basically OMG my friends rucksack just exploded before the full story was known....Tell me you are friends with terrorists without telling me you are friends with terrorists...
Canadian trip complete. What an absolute fucking blast
No Vancouver Island?
Drove past it on that amazing highway
Am now determined to return and do Vancouver island and Haida Gwaii (which I’d never heard of until now)
I’m right now walking back to my superb downtown hotel from my tour of the best artisanal brewery in the city. Lots of free beer = good mood. The sun is shining, the kids are cycling and skating, the sky has that pure blue you never quite get in Europe, only in North America. A kind of hard mineral sparkle over the water and the mountains
At this precise moment Vancouver feels like the best city in the world. Why would you live anywhere else?
I wonder how many people under a certain age asked today "What's a walkie talkie?"
Or, indeed, "What's a pager?"
I used to drink in a pub across the road from a hospital. Several times each evening a bleeper would go off, whereupon the owner would stand up, down his pint, and stagger across to deal with whatever emergency required his presence. All too often he'd reappear after half an hour covered in blood.
(I made up that last sentence.)
My mum had a bleeper in the 70s because she was working in a hospital at the time. Must have seemed very high-tech at the time.
There was a period in the 90's when the only people who had pagers were surgeon's, drug dealers and twitchers.
Oh the thrill of a mega alert on that pager that would send us twitchers rushing to one end of the country or the other...
Canadian trip complete. What an absolute fucking blast
No Vancouver Island?
Drove past it on that amazing highway
Am now determined to return and do Vancouver island and Haida Gwaii (which I’d never heard of until now)
I’m right now walking back to my superb downtown hotel from my tour of the best artisanal brewery in the city. Lots of free beer = good mood. The sun is shining, the kids are cycling and skating, the sky has that pure blue you never quite get in Europe, only in North America. A kind of hard mineral sparkle over the water and the mountains
At this precise moment Vancouver feels like the best city in the world. Why would you live anywhere else?
I accept this is a warped perspective
It used to be even better with more affordable houses, food and drink and less drug addicts. First time I went it was $2.5 to the £1 and everything was basically same cost in $'s as was here in £'s.
Far side of Vancouver Island is another world around Tofino. If you do go back, I highly recommend a trip to San Juan Islands which are East of Vancouver Island (but in US). The Orca Whales are all over the place (given the right time of year) around there.
"Kemi Badenoch: I went from middle class to working class after McDonald’s job
The Conservative Party leadership contender claimed serving burgers and cleaning toilets alongside single parents at the fast-food chain gave her ‘humility’"
These worry me though as the worst thing the Harris campaign can do is get cocky. They've been very successful so far by being focused on punching Trump and Vance in the goolies by focusing on what key voters hate about them. Ease up and take any vote for granted and there's every chance he springs a surprise by turning some odd voters out.
I don't see the Harris campaign getting cocky.
I do see Trump and Vance melting into absurdity though as these numbers send them quite mad.
Canadian trip complete. What an absolute fucking blast
I've always fancied going to Canada. Maybe next year... 🙏
I can't recommend it highly enough. Leon isn't over-hyping it. I haven't been since before COVID now, I really need to get out there again myself. You will need to remortgage your house these days though to afford anything.
Comments
On marriage/relationships, I'm even less of an expert than TSE. It wouldn't surprise me if there were fewer divorces as fewer people are getting married. Perhaps it has become the exclusive lifestyle of those who are sure it's what they want. Young marriages (think Scott and Charlene) are increasingly rare. All this leaves a quandary. Either we have more children born outside of marriage where separation is more likely or fewer children altogether.
https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-declares-gifts-and-freebies-totalling-more-than-100-000-the-highest-of-any-mp-13217287
More generally, it's a fallow period. Too autumnal for silly season proper, but real politics hasn't really started again. So the press are reduced to putting out thin gruel like this, and speculating like crazy.
And someone in the Number Ten setup is happy to brief all kinds of unflattering gubbins to the press. I wonder who?
They could also invest some of the trust fund profits in the stock market or property to help fund the paper and the paper could charge for some online articles like the Mail and Telegraph do
No wonder the Tories are pissed.
Instead, bust councils tend to shed the useful boots on the ground and services people actually want in order to protect the untouchable management class as they wander from pointless meeting to pointless meeting.
I am sure some labour supporters are wanting to downplay this but apparently there is a lot of unease in the Labour Party and also with Sue Gray's performance at the heart of everything Starmer does
Government is fame and glory and importance and big offices and chauffeurs and being interviewed by Terry Wogan.
Opposition is impotence and insignificance and people at parties asking you if you know Robin Day.
And the Conservatives have just entered opposition. Most of them won't have been there before.
"After reviewing six months of nationwide member polling and wrapping up nearly a year of rank-and-file roundtable interviews with all major candidates for the presidency, the union was left with few commitments on top Teamsters issues from either former President Donald Trump or Vice President Kamala Harris—and found no definitive support among members for either party’s nominee," the union said in a statement.
No definite support....60/40 in US terms is about as definite as things get.
1. Its the way he whines about it and
2. He can afford his own box if it’s that important
Again much of this would not matter if Starmer hadn’t been such a ceaseless Puritan hypocrite, condemning Tories endlessly for exactly this
Hence the inflated salary as "hush money"???
The big test is to find this magical increase in productivity, in growth and sort out of the public services.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/sep/09/tory-covid-contracts-worth-15bn-had-corruption-red-flags-study-finds
I've noticed that the tech sector does seem to have slowed to a crawl wrt hiring new talent, I worry that this is the beginning of a trend rather than something temporary.
As it stands we're going to stop hiring for a lead data scientist and an ML engineer, that's two £120k+ salaries now not being hired in the UK for at least a year.
"Sue Gray only pensioner better off under Labour"
Whether pulling that lever gets more stuff built, and whether that ungums the economy, and whether that pays off by 2028/9, that all remains to be seen.
But it's a start, and more promising than some other recent attempts. Starmer has already done 1.5 Trusses in the job.
umichvoter 🏳️🌈
@umichvoter
·
4h
9 polls now in that Harris +4-6 national poll cluster
https://x.com/umichvoter/status/1836459576855548234
Michael Bronstein, Oxford prof + one of the world’s leading experts in protein design, has been given £150mn to set up an AI for biodesign lab in Austria
The US equivalent (IPD) has spun out billions of $
Why hasn’t the U.K. backed Michael (or someone like him) to do the same?
https://x.com/Tom_Westgarth15/status/1836430529568100795
I'm not advocating this, but the security guards and/or police may help you in putting your "puts some other bit of dishonesty into perspective" argument, into perspective.
I also think that companies are cutting a lot of fat right now outside of core dev, product and data teams. At my old company I know they just cut 3 in 4 out of some teams that weren't client facing or didn't have any indirect role in driving value for clients.
All of this seems to be adding up and I think throw in a lot of uncertainty about the new worker rights stuff the government is drip feeding out there and you have a reluctance to hire key positions until there's clarity. I think contractors will do well for the next 18-24 months.
So, small coffee (£2.29) and "Big breakfast wrap" and hash brown. Total £3.29, and 750 calories. Might be the best value breakfast in the UK. Taste 8/10. Decent.
That is an interesting take on the landscape.
I used to drink in a pub across the road from a hospital. Several times each evening a bleeper would go off, whereupon the owner would stand up, down his pint, and stagger across to deal with whatever emergency required his presence. All too often he'd reappear after half an hour covered in blood.
(I made up that last sentence.)
Harris wins 61 times out of 100in our simulations of the 2024 presidential election.
Trump wins 39 times out of 100."
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2024-election-forecast/pennsylvania/
https://www.wheresyoured.at/subprimeai/
They need some proper good news stories soon otherwise they are setting the scene for the next 5 years. Hard to get the publics confidence back once you’ve lost it.
We all know the ideal situation is the security of a happy marriage or similar agreements. The question 'family values' policy always fails to answer is whether those who struggle, either financially or because they're not suited, should be pushed into staying together by committing, or whether we need to help people into a better place where that's an easier option of its own accord.
The hype about o1 "thinking" is nonsense, but for crunching / improving tedious stuff they are unbelievably useful.
Part of the solution will be getting the right data to train it on, and asking the right questions. Guys like Bronstein are likely to be a necessary part of that.
https://x.com/greg_ip/status/1836385806681788428
Not that this is interesting, just putting down a marker to rebut future claims of aftertiming
This was a good video from Peter Santenello (a very milk toast guy who travels around reporting all over the place) on the madness of the situation on the Canada border.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXdu8gkNLTk
You cross illegally, you ring border patrol, they pick you up, process you, then you are free to go legally, court date sometime in 5 years.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/18/justice-secretary-shabana-mahmood-twitter-account-hacked/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cglk9kypn36o
Iranian hackers distributed hacked information about Donald Trump's electoral campaign to people linked to the Biden campaign, according to the FBI and US intelligence agencies.
The reality is that they are proud owners of travesty generators and code completion tools. Incrementally useful for a number of things. But you can't fire everyone this week.
The likelihood is that they hacked the Trump campaign simply because its data security is poor.
Recall that various U.S. media outlets were also sent hacked material from the Trump campaign, which they have not published.
Yup.
RFK Jr. says he’s helping Trump pick leaders of FDA, NIH, CDC
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4887585-rfk-jr-trump-fda-nih-cdc/
Former independent presidential candidate and antivaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that former President Trump wants him to choose leaders for key public health agencies if he wins the election in November.
..
This comes after the platform, formerly known as Twitter, was banned in the country on 31 August.
The change was made possible after the company, which is owned by tech billionaire Elon Musk, moved their service to servers hosted by Cloudflare, according to ABRINT, the country's leading trade group for Internet Service Providers (ISP).
The change makes it much harder to block applications on phones, the trade group said.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy4dn4z02emo
The problem with Trump and Vance is that they are two very online men living in an echo chamber whereby the big concerns about illegal immigration aren't the reasonable practical difficulties, but mad stories about eating pets and far right conspiracy theories.
That's not to say lots won't vote for them if are pissed off about the issue and see as tough, just sounding mad pushes lots of others in the other direction.
As we saw with the Tory efforts to turn it into a defining issue here - which turned an area that should have been a rare win into a carnival of chaos where right-wing voters thought they were delusional and full of crap, and left/liberal voters thought they were behaving like ogreish fascists.
The US is too polarised for a similar thing, but sounding like drunken frat boy racists could well drive Democrat turnout while hardly convincing they're the guys to sort things out if you are an independent who's annoyed at migration problems.
The Conservative Party leadership contender claimed serving burgers and cleaning toilets alongside single parents at the fast-food chain gave her ‘humility’"
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/kemi-badenoch-i-went-from-middle-class-to-working-class-after-mcdonalds-job-kkhqsmd0g
Am now determined to return and do Vancouver island and Haida Gwaii (which I’d never heard of until now)
I’m right now walking back to my superb downtown hotel from my tour of the best artisanal brewery in the city. Lots of free beer = good mood. The sun is shining, the kids are cycling and skating, the sky has that pure blue you never quite get in Europe, only in North America. A kind of hard mineral sparkle over the water and the mountains
At this precise moment Vancouver feels like the best city in the world. Why would you live anywhere else?
I accept this is a warped perspective
Oh the thrill of a mega alert on that pager that would send us twitchers rushing to one end of the country or the other...
Far side of Vancouver Island is another world around Tofino. If you do go back, I highly recommend a trip to San Juan Islands which are East of Vancouver Island (but in US). The Orca Whales are all over the place (given the right time of year) around there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ez0gz6BXplA
I do see Trump and Vance melting into absurdity though as these numbers send them quite mad.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czxgdgkew81o
They clearly think it's a big one.
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