Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Didn't you once say: "What's said on PB stays on PB?"
What a mess England are making of this. Might not bat the 50.
Never understood the issue with not batting the overs. If you score 350 all out in 40 overs isn't it better than 300-5 in 50? (Assuming modetn ODI rules - local leagues may have different rules and overs transferred etc)
England worst of both worlds. 230-3 off 34, 315 all out without batting the full overs.
Old adage - wait until both sides have bowled. Looks like spin is the way ahead.
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
I've not yet seen a fuller clip of that yet. Notice how quickly it ends. Without further information I would assume that she was making a joke rather than contributing to the hatchet-job that is clearly taking place on this candidate.
Would indeed be interesting to see the context
I find it hard to conclude that she was serious. How likely is that? So where is this hatchet-job coming from and why? Why the hatchet-job on Badenoch but not Jenrick? It's been said that the MPs don't like her - well if that's the case she won't make the final two anyway. We know Mandelson is on record as saying that she is the candidate Labour fears...
Seems to me this is one of those elections it's best to lose. Have your hat in the ring, sure, but better to be winner next time (or the time after that).
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
Does she get freebies to Taylor Swift concerts ?
You would have to pay me to go to those...
Even then I wouldn't - but then I am 80
Just looked up with the sound off, and low and behold Sam Coates of Sky again doing a hatchet job on Starmer
Coates has been on virtually every half hour today about Starmer and his freebies
Maybe this is just 'gotcha' journalism but pleased for once it is Labour and not the Conservatives
And now Sky are saying some prison inmates have been released without electronics tags
I don't visit McDonalds etc, but when I was a youth, it was standard right of passage that basically everybody I knew worked in one of those types of minimum wage jobs. The places ran on 16-21 year olds with a couple of managers who were normally uni dropouts. I certainly did it and during uni hoildays I did crappy agency jobs in warehouses etc. I returned to uni more motivated than ever that I never want to have to do that for a living.
With the rise of technology, low skilled immigration etc, is that not the case now?
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
The PM is woefully underpaid position these days. The story doesn't seem really about the salary Sue Gray gets (that isn't OTT for the role), it appears that multiple people within government independently leaked it to a BBC journalist out of some sort of spite / factional war going on.
Johnson - Cummings
Now
Starmer - Gray and in just a few weeks disarray and turmoil in no 10 reigns
Apparently yougov has Starmer on 22/60 (minus 38) which in statistical terms has any PM become so unpopular in this time frame then the absurd Truss ?
Starmer is probably the least popular leader of the opposition to become PM, so it's not surprising that he's become deeply unpopular, very quickly, as a couple of people did say was possible ahead of time.
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Didn't you once say: "What's said on PB stays on PB?"
Except the reason we have multiple Leon's is partly to avoid things on PB NOT staying on PB, just sayin'.
What a mess England are making of this. Might not bat the 50.
Never understood the issue with not batting the overs. If you score 350 all out in 40 overs isn't it better than 300-5 in 50? (Assuming modetn ODI rules - local leagues may have different rules and overs transferred etc)
England worst of both worlds. 230-3 off 34, 315 all out without batting the full overs.
Old adage - wait until both sides have bowled. Looks like spin is the way ahead.
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
Does she get freebies to Taylor Swift concerts ?
You would have to pay me to go to those...
Even then I wouldn't - but then I am 80
I would say more a man of good taste and experience :-)
I don't visit McDonalds etc, but when I was a youth, it was standard right of passage that basically everybody I knew worked in one of those types of minimum wage jobs. The places ran on 16-18 year olds with a couple of managers who were normally uni dropouts. I certainly did it and during uni hoildays I did crappy agency jobs in warehouses etc. I returned to uni more motivated than ever that I never want to have to do that for a living.
With the rise of technology, low skilled immigration etc, is that not the case now?
I spent a few happy days pulling up 'rogue' oats from wheat fields that were destined to become seed crop. Now that's a work experience.
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Sometimes its difficult to tell.
Though it did seem rather extended for an rcs post.
What a mess England are making of this. Might not bat the 50.
Never understood the issue with not batting the overs. If you score 350 all out in 40 overs isn't it better than 300-5 in 50? (Assuming modetn ODI rules - local leagues may have different rules and overs transferred etc)
England worst of both worlds. 230-3 off 34, 315 all out without batting the full overs.
Old adage - wait until both sides have bowled. Looks like spin is the way ahead.
Trent Bridge is a very high scoring ground.
The Aussies stopped bowling pace on completely and saw out the innings with spin. Going to be interesting. I wouldn't rule out the Aussies winning with plenty to spare or an England win tbh.
I don't visit McDonalds etc, but when I was a youth, it was standard right of passage that basically everybody I knew worked in one of those types of minimum wage jobs. The places ran on 16-18 year olds with a couple of managers who were normally uni dropouts. I certainly did it and during uni hoildays I did crappy agency jobs in warehouses etc. I returned to uni more motivated than ever that I never want to have to do that for a living.
With the rise of technology, low skilled immigration etc, is that not the case now?
I spent a few happy days pulling up 'rogue' oats from wheat fields that were destined to become seed crop. Now that's a work experience.
My worse one was packing potatoes. You had to pack these 25kg bags, then put them through a sowing machine and another job was then stacking them onto palettes of 1000kg. The worst was if you got a lifer on the stacking and your bag didn't sow properly, they would launch the the bag back at you as if it weighed nothing.
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
Does she get freebies to Taylor Swift concerts ?
You would have to pay me to go to those...
Even then I wouldn't - but then I am 80
I would say more a man of good taste and experience :-)
That is very kind of you on a day my wife has has a third fall in two days
I've not yet seen a fuller clip of that yet. Notice how quickly it ends. Without further information I would assume that she was making a joke rather than contributing to the hatchet-job that is clearly taking place on this candidate.
Would indeed be interesting to see the context
I find it hard to conclude that she was serious. How likely is that? So where is this hatchet-job coming from and why? Why the hatchet-job on Badenoch but not Jenrick? It's been said that the MPs don't like her - well if that's the case she won't make the final two anyway. We know Mandelson is on record as saying that she is the candidate Labour fears...
If Mandelson says she is the candidate Labour fears you know the Prince of Darkness actually means the opposite, Badenoch is the candidate Labour want. I suspect they most fear Tugendhat or Cleverly who the polling shows most appeal to ex Tory Labour voters
I did wonder that, a double-bluff, but I think they would be right to fear her. She would clobber Starmer more than any other candidate and wouldn't take any shit from her MPs. After timidity Sunak this would be refreshing.
She is also a lightweight who I doubt would appeal much to Labour or LD voters and is too pro immigration for Reform voters who would stick with Farage.
Mandelson recalls a dinner with her where Kemi ‘arrived late, sat down noisily, asked a none too bright question, then left early.’ So yes she is no nonsense but otherwise Mandy damning with faint praise
I cannot see how you can regard her as a lightweight. She is but Tugendhat isn't?
I think Jenrick will win and will be a big mistake.
I think you are right about Jenrick. I also think the value bet (if there is one) is Cleverly. Assume only one of Jenrick and Kemi can make the last two, for simple maths reasons, so one of Hat and Cleverly must get through. It won't be Hat. So if Jenrick slips up - and some would argue that he presents as an oleagenous creep who helps the wrong sort and steals white sticks off blind people - Cleverly gets it.
(As to the correct answer, Hunt is the only possible candidate on current evidence. Maybe they will get there in the end.)
Cleverly is currently 12-1 on Betfair, 'hat 18-1. Worth it as trading bets, on the assumption that one of them will make the final 2? Somewhere to put the betfair bonus bet.
"Britain | Bagehot The bungee-jumping, sandal-clad right-wingers of British politics If the Liberal Democrats want to replace the Conservatives, they must move further right on the economy "
I’ve had problems in recent travels with Santander and Halifax and Barclay all questioning and stopping Visa and Mastercard payments. It’s because they can’t believe someone would travel this much - so they think it’s fraudulent. This despite me telling them my job involves frequent travel. Maddening
The one card that works every time? Often my last hope? Amex
If you want stupidity and credit cards.
I have a paid for Lloyds Global Travel card that gives priority security and free lounge access. I don't use it abroad because they have a 3% surcharge on foreign currency transactions. So I use a Halifax Clarity card in such circumstances.
Hah
Do you use airport lounges, Leon? I'm going with 'yes'.
I travelled with someone last year who had business class while I was economy (as always) and he managed to get me into one as his guest. Free food and drinks was nice I guess but it was rammed and we couldn't find a seat. I'd much rather had gone to Pret.
There are airport lounges and there are airport lounges...the standard ones any old pleb can pay £20-30 and get access or pay a fairly low yearly membership for it. Given how expensive a Starbucks and a McD's have become its not exactly much more expensive.
If you’re flying Business just to get quick boarding and access to a lounge - eg for short haul - you’re generally making a terrible mistake
It’s better to spend £100 at the most expensive bar/seafood joint in the airport - and have a relaxed time with GREAT food and wine, than to spend the extra £300 on Biz tickets and get free cheap cheddar and crackers and dodgy wine in a crammed lounge
And airports all around the world are getting much better at shortening queues. E-gates are becoming ubiquitous and everyone has realised how to stagger security queues so they are smooth
I find the best value for money of anything in the world is the 70 odd quid extra it costs for an economy seat by the exit so there's nothing in front of you. 85% of the benefit of biz for 5% of the cost.
Yes. Exactly right
Also these days in long haul, on a decent airline, the economy entertainment is easily as good as Biz about 5 years ago. Tons of movies and TV: as many as you need. On a personal screen
So then you’re paying for space (which you can secure by the method you state) and nicer food. But it isn’t £2000 nicer
Does anyone use the entertainment on a plane these days? I download what I want on Netflix and iPlayer Apps on my phone and use bluetooth.
I find the biggest innovation for making long haul tolerable is top-class noise-cancelling headphones.
If you want to watch the included entertainment, but keep your own headphones, you can get one of these:
I remember the looks I used to get when I Sennheiser ones way before they became commonplace (and it was only Bose / Sennheiser that had the tech), having to explain what they were and how £400 was absolutely worth it.
Hell yes! I’ve got the latest Bose ones, worth every single penny when flying economy. They’re the same ones Emirates will lend you in biz class.
I've not yet seen a fuller clip of that yet. Notice how quickly it ends. Without further information I would assume that she was making a joke rather than contributing to the hatchet-job that is clearly taking place on this candidate.
Would indeed be interesting to see the context
I find it hard to conclude that she was serious. How likely is that? So where is this hatchet-job coming from and why? Why the hatchet-job on Badenoch but not Jenrick? It's been said that the MPs don't like her - well if that's the case she won't make the final two anyway. We know Mandelson is on record as saying that she is the candidate Labour fears...
If Mandelson says she is the candidate Labour fears you know the Prince of Darkness actually means the opposite, Badenoch is the candidate Labour want. I suspect they most fear Tugendhat or Cleverly who the polling shows most appeal to ex Tory Labour voters
I did wonder that, a double-bluff, but I think they would be right to fear her. She would clobber Starmer more than any other candidate and wouldn't take any shit from her MPs. After timidity Sunak this would be refreshing.
She is also a lightweight who I doubt would appeal much to Labour or LD voters and is too pro immigration for Reform voters who would stick with Farage.
Mandelson recalls a dinner with her where Kemi ‘arrived late, sat down noisily, asked a none too bright question, then left early.’ So yes she is no nonsense but otherwise Mandy damning with faint praise
I doubt Labour fears any of the four candidates, or expects them even to make it to the next election. A combination of Labour hubris and recent Conservative history of factionalism and ousting leaders.
I've not yet seen a fuller clip of that yet. Notice how quickly it ends. Without further information I would assume that she was making a joke rather than contributing to the hatchet-job that is clearly taking place on this candidate.
Would indeed be interesting to see the context
I find it hard to conclude that she was serious. How likely is that? So where is this hatchet-job coming from and why? Why the hatchet-job on Badenoch but not Jenrick? It's been said that the MPs don't like her - well if that's the case she won't make the final two anyway. We know Mandelson is on record as saying that she is the candidate Labour fears...
If Mandelson says she is the candidate Labour fears you know the Prince of Darkness actually means the opposite, Badenoch is the candidate Labour want. I suspect they most fear Tugendhat or Cleverly who the polling shows most appeal to ex Tory Labour voters
I did wonder that, a double-bluff, but I think they would be right to fear her. She would clobber Starmer more than any other candidate and wouldn't take any shit from her MPs. After timidity Sunak this would be refreshing.
She is also a lightweight who I doubt would appeal much to Labour or LD voters and is too pro immigration for Reform voters who would stick with Farage.
Mandelson recalls a dinner with her where Kemi ‘arrived late, sat down noisily, asked a none too bright question, then left early.’ So yes she is no nonsense but otherwise Mandy damning with faint praise
I doubt Labour fears any of the four candidates, or expects them even to make it to the next election. A combination of Labour hubris and recent Conservative history of factionalism and ousting leaders.
I would suggest Labour have their own problems and at this stage the conservatives are not relevant
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Oh, I just asked ChatGPT to respond disagreeing with everything you said in a very sarcastic tone.
I think it did quite well.
I'm thinking of programming a @Leon-bot. It'll look at your complete opus of "work", and at the current thread, and generate random comments from time to time.
I’ve had problems in recent travels with Santander and Halifax and Barclay all questioning and stopping Visa and Mastercard payments. It’s because they can’t believe someone would travel this much - so they think it’s fraudulent. This despite me telling them my job involves frequent travel. Maddening
The one card that works every time? Often my last hope? Amex
If you want stupidity and credit cards.
I have a paid for Lloyds Global Travel card that gives priority security and free lounge access. I don't use it abroad because they have a 3% surcharge on foreign currency transactions. So I use a Halifax Clarity card in such circumstances.
Hah
Do you use airport lounges, Leon? I'm going with 'yes'.
I travelled with someone last year who had business class while I was economy (as always) and he managed to get me into one as his guest. Free food and drinks was nice I guess but it was rammed and we couldn't find a seat. I'd much rather had gone to Pret.
Actually I don’t use lounges that much, often because of the reasons you cite. They are often rammed, and the food and drinks are generally rubbish
I do my research. You CAN find lounges at the really big airports - JFK, LHR, CDG, Changi, UAE - which are genuinely great
The big lounge at Barajas, Madrid, is magnificent (or was when I last used it)
The Israeli government did not tamper with the Hezbollah devices that exploded, defense and intelligence officials say. It manufactured them as part of an elaborate ruse.
By all appearances, B.A.C. Consulting was a Hungary-based company that was under contract to produce the devices on behalf of a Taiwanese company, Gold Apollo. In fact, it was part of an Israeli front, according to three intelligence officers briefed on the operation. They said at least two other shell companies were created as well to mask the real identities of the people creating the pagers: Israeli intelligence officers. B.A.C. did take on ordinary clients, for which it produced a range of ordinary pagers. But the only client that really mattered was Hezbollah, and its pagers were far from ordinary. Produced separately, they contained batteries laced with the explosive PETN, according to the three intelligence officers.
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Oh, I just asked ChatGPT to respond disagreeing with everything you said in a very sarcastic tone.
I think it did quite well.
I'm thinking of programming a @Leon-bot. It'll look at your complete opus of "work", and at the current thread, and generate random comments from time to time.
Please put a cut-out in it so that it doesn't get locked into an eternal argument with Barty or Kina.
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Oh, I just asked ChatGPT to respond disagreeing with everything you said in a very sarcastic tone.
I think it did quite well.
I'm thinking of programming a @Leon-bot. It'll look at your complete opus of "work", and at the current thread, and generate random comments from time to time.
It should operate when, and only when, Leon is banned.
"Britain | Bagehot The bungee-jumping, sandal-clad right-wingers of British politics If the Liberal Democrats want to replace the Conservatives, they must move further right on the economy "
"If the Liberal Democrats want to succeed in British Politics, they must take a position which coincidentally accords with that of the writer and the newspaper he writes for."
Actually, I agree. If you're trying to get non-socialists to vote for you, you need to be non-socialist in outlook - particularly given the start the Labour party has made to government. There's a huge swathe of middle England who could be won over by a "let's try not to cock everything up" argument - the Tories would normally have that constituency sewn up, but immediately after a big election loss is definitely the time to pitch for them.
I doubt they will though. Just too easy to call for more spending on x, or more rules on y.
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Didn't you once say: "What's said on PB stays on PB?"
Except the reason we have multiple Leon's is partly to avoid things on PB NOT staying on PB, just sayin'.
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Oh, I just asked ChatGPT to respond disagreeing with everything you said in a very sarcastic tone.
I think it did quite well.
I'm thinking of programming a @Leon-bot. It'll look at your complete opus of "work", and at the current thread, and generate random comments from time to time.
If I am allowed to discuss AI without being banned then Yes, ChatGPT could easily do this already
I often find myself looking at comments online while thinking: is that human or just a bot?
They may render most social media unusable. Dead Internet Theory
I’ve had problems in recent travels with Santander and Halifax and Barclay all questioning and stopping Visa and Mastercard payments. It’s because they can’t believe someone would travel this much - so they think it’s fraudulent. This despite me telling them my job involves frequent travel. Maddening
The one card that works every time? Often my last hope? Amex
If you want stupidity and credit cards.
I have a paid for Lloyds Global Travel card that gives priority security and free lounge access. I don't use it abroad because they have a 3% surcharge on foreign currency transactions. So I use a Halifax Clarity card in such circumstances.
Hah
Do you use airport lounges, Leon? I'm going with 'yes'.
I travelled with someone last year who had business class while I was economy (as always) and he managed to get me into one as his guest. Free food and drinks was nice I guess but it was rammed and we couldn't find a seat. I'd much rather had gone to Pret.
There are airport lounges and there are airport lounges...the standard ones any old pleb can pay £20-30 and get access or pay a fairly low yearly membership for it. Given how expensive a Starbucks and a McD's have become its not exactly much more expensive.
If you’re flying Business just to get quick boarding and access to a lounge - eg for short haul - you’re generally making a terrible mistake
It’s better to spend £100 at the most expensive bar/seafood joint in the airport - and have a relaxed time with GREAT food and wine, than to spend the extra £300 on Biz tickets and get free cheap cheddar and crackers and dodgy wine in a crammed lounge
And airports all around the world are getting much better at shortening queues. E-gates are becoming ubiquitous and everyone has realised how to stagger security queues so they are smooth
I find the best value for money of anything in the world is the 70 odd quid extra it costs for an economy seat by the exit so there's nothing in front of you. 85% of the benefit of biz for 5% of the cost.
Yes. Exactly right
Also these days in long haul, on a decent airline, the economy entertainment is easily as good as Biz about 5 years ago. Tons of movies and TV: as many as you need. On a personal screen
So then you’re paying for space (which you can secure by the method you state) and nicer food. But it isn’t £2000 nicer
Does anyone use the entertainment on a plane these days? I download what I want on Netflix and iPlayer Apps on my phone and use bluetooth.
I can still remember the guy down at Embankment Station who used to sell the Standard. He’d been shouting “Standard!” so long the words had morphed into “Eeeeannndurrda!”
I worked out it was the very last of the Cries of London, the costers & muffinmen yelling their wares along the Strand and down by the river and across old Drury Lane
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
The PM is woefully underpaid position these days. The story doesn't seem really about the salary Sue Gray gets (that isn't OTT for the role), it appears that multiple people within government independently leaked it to a BBC journalist out of some sort of spite / factional war going on.
Johnson - Cummings
Now
Starmer - Gray and in just a few weeks disarray and turmoil in no 10 reigns
Apparently yougov has Starmer on 22/60 (minus 38) which in statistical terms has any PM become so unpopular in this time frame then the absurd Truss ?
The Gray business is immaterial. This is down to taking money off granny, allied to a lot of gloomy prognostication and the assumption of tax hikes.
It always seemed probable that the Government would do a load of unpopular stuff at the outset and bet the farm on a rising economic tide floating all the boats in 2-3 years. It's on that kind of timescale that we'll discover if it's going to work.
I’ve had problems in recent travels with Santander and Halifax and Barclay all questioning and stopping Visa and Mastercard payments. It’s because they can’t believe someone would travel this much - so they think it’s fraudulent. This despite me telling them my job involves frequent travel. Maddening
The one card that works every time? Often my last hope? Amex
If you want stupidity and credit cards.
I have a paid for Lloyds Global Travel card that gives priority security and free lounge access. I don't use it abroad because they have a 3% surcharge on foreign currency transactions. So I use a Halifax Clarity card in such circumstances.
Hah
Do you use airport lounges, Leon? I'm going with 'yes'.
I travelled with someone last year who had business class while I was economy (as always) and he managed to get me into one as his guest. Free food and drinks was nice I guess but it was rammed and we couldn't find a seat. I'd much rather had gone to Pret.
There are airport lounges and there are airport lounges...the standard ones any old pleb can pay £20-30 and get access or pay a fairly low yearly membership for it. Given how expensive a Starbucks and a McD's have become its not exactly much more expensive.
If you’re flying Business just to get quick boarding and access to a lounge - eg for short haul - you’re generally making a terrible mistake
It’s better to spend £100 at the most expensive bar/seafood joint in the airport - and have a relaxed time with GREAT food and wine, than to spend the extra £300 on Biz tickets and get free cheap cheddar and crackers and dodgy wine in a crammed lounge
And airports all around the world are getting much better at shortening queues. E-gates are becoming ubiquitous and everyone has realised how to stagger security queues so they are smooth
I find the best value for money of anything in the world is the 70 odd quid extra it costs for an economy seat by the exit so there's nothing in front of you. 85% of the benefit of biz for 5% of the cost.
Yes. Exactly right
Also these days in long haul, on a decent airline, the economy entertainment is easily as good as Biz about 5 years ago. Tons of movies and TV: as many as you need. On a personal screen
So then you’re paying for space (which you can secure by the method you state) and nicer food. But it isn’t £2000 nicer
Most people are paying for a lie flat 'bed'. But yes, if its your own money, never £2k better.
It astonishes me that anyone would pay that sum. How decadent and obscene to spend £2,000 extra rather than putting up with very mild discomfort, at worst, for ten hours instead.
Any less than say 6hrs, never had any issue with cattle class, but when you start to get to those 10hrs+ flights, it can become more than a mild discomfort.
I used to catch the 10am Qatar airlines flight from Heathrow on Saturday morning twice a year. I'd land in Doha on Saturday evening, then change for the flight to Melbourne. I'd land at 5pm on Sunday evening in Melbourne, do client meetings all day Monday, fly to Sydney, then do a day of client meetings on Tuesday. Tuesday evening I would fly home, and be back at my desk on Wednesday morning.
I would not do that schedule in economy.
(Top tip: Doha airport has a swimming pool anyone can access! It was an amazing way to loosen up on long trips.)
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Is that the one in Marylebone that used to be a fire station?
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Oh, I just asked ChatGPT to respond disagreeing with everything you said in a very sarcastic tone.
I think it did quite well.
I'm thinking of programming a @Leon-bot. It'll look at your complete opus of "work", and at the current thread, and generate random comments from time to time.
If I am allowed to discuss AI without being banned then Yes, ChatGPT could easily do this already
I often find myself looking at comments online while thinking: is that human or just a bot?
They may render most social media unusable. Dead Internet Theory
In the darkness between the stars, the avatars of uploaded lobsters negotiate...
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
The PM is woefully underpaid position these days. The story doesn't seem really about the salary Sue Gray gets (that isn't OTT for the role), it appears that multiple people within government independently leaked it to a BBC journalist out of some sort of spite / factional war going on.
The FT suggests it's annoyed SPADs, because SPAD pay has fallen and isn't competitive.
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
The PM is woefully underpaid position these days. The story doesn't seem really about the salary Sue Gray gets (that isn't OTT for the role), it appears that multiple people within government independently leaked it to a BBC journalist out of some sort of spite / factional war going on.
Johnson - Cummings
Now
Starmer - Gray and in just a few weeks disarray and turmoil in no 10 reigns
Apparently yougov has Starmer on 22/60 (minus 38) which in statistical terms has any PM become so unpopular in this time frame then the absurd Truss ?
The Gray business is immaterial. This is down to taking money off granny, allied to a lot of gloomy prognostication and the assumption of tax hikes.
It always seemed probable that the Government would do a load of unpopular stuff at the outset and bet the farm on a rising economic tide floating all the boats in 2-3 years. It's on that kind of timescale that we'll discover if it's going to work.
No. It’s also the greed and grift allied with the perception that Starmer is a reeking hypocrite. “Service” and “nation” my arse; “free designer specs” and “free £2k frocks for the wife, ta” is more like it
He’s made himself contemptible in double quick time and these were entirely unforced errors
On topic: So, how much would Kemi have made per hour, when she was working at McDonalds?
Ten years ago, it was quite common here in the Seattle area for middle class teenagers to have part time jobs in fast food places, but it seems less common, now.
And decades ago, it was common for women attending college to work as waitresses during the summer. Mt. Rainier even had a system in which the women could display on their badges the college or university they were attending -- which probably didn't hurt their tips. (Last time I was there, almost all of the waitresses were foreigners.)
(I would like to give you comparative figures for the US, but they now vary wildly from state to state, and even from city to city. Example: Some cities in this area now have minimum wages of 20 dollars an hour, or even a little higher. The state's minimum wage is now $16.28, as of January.
A few months ago, Megan McArdle mentioned research that claimed that -- in the US -- higher minimum wages were correlated with homelessness.)
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
Oh @Leon, my dear sweet summer child! How quaint your understanding of history is—like a nursery rhyme for the geopolitically naïve. Let me take a moment from my busy schedule of rolling my eyes to respond to your charming interpretation of the Armenia-Russia relationship.
You’ve "been to Armenia," have you? And read some books, too? Oh, @Leon, congratulations on your unparalleled expertise. Because, of course, a few visits and some light reading are all one needs to truly grasp the tangled web of centuries-old geopolitics. What next? Are you going to teach a masterclass in Advanced Diplomacy based on your trip to a souvenir shop in Yerevan?
Let’s address your absolutely precious idea that the Armenian-Russian relationship is somehow based on “two ancient Christian nations” standing hand-in-hand against the scary Muslim Ottomans. Oh, the drama! The sweeping romance! This isn’t a history lesson, @Leon, it’s a soap opera you’ve concocted. Are you honestly suggesting that Tsarist Russia, that paragon of altruism, was motivated by a deep, spiritual bond with Armenia? That they just couldn’t resist protecting their dear Christian brethren? Give me a break! Russia had about as much interest in Armenia’s well-being as a wolf does in sheep’s rights. They were after territory, power, and influence—simple as that.
Now, your assertion that Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia—oh, where do I even begin? Are we talking about the same Russia? The one that’s cosying up to Turkey and Azerbaijan like they’re at some geopolitical singles’ mixer, while Armenia is standing in the corner awkwardly holding a drink? It’s like calling a frog and a snake “natural allies” because they both live near the same pond. Russia’s only “natural ally” is its own self-interest, and guess what, Armenia isn’t at the top of that list, no matter how many ancient Christian alliances you want to dream up.
And Putin bungling the relationship? Oh, @Leon, you give him far too much credit. Putin hasn’t bungled anything—he’s doing exactly what Russia has always done: use Armenia as a pawn in its grand game of let’s stay relevant on the world stage. If Armenia had any illusions of being Russia’s special little friend, those have been crushed under the weight of Moscow’s deals with Ankara and Baku. The sad reality is, Armenia is useful to Russia until it isn’t. There’s no bungling; there’s only cold, calculated realpolitik.
As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
I recommend a subscription to Claude Sonnet 3.5, instead of Perplexity. Its less prolix and florid and less obviously synthetic
Well spotted. And I do also subscribe to Claude. (And I don't subscribe to Perplexity any more, because ChatGPT now does a better job of browsing the web than Perplexity.)
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
The PM is woefully underpaid position these days. The story doesn't seem really about the salary Sue Gray gets (that isn't OTT for the role), it appears that multiple people within government independently leaked it to a BBC journalist out of some sort of spite / factional war going on.
The FT suggests it's annoyed SPADs, because SPAD pay has fallen and isn't competitive.
Would they know her salary though, it hadn't been announced yet. There must be a limited number of people with that info.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
I’ve had problems in recent travels with Santander and Halifax and Barclay all questioning and stopping Visa and Mastercard payments. It’s because they can’t believe someone would travel this much - so they think it’s fraudulent. This despite me telling them my job involves frequent travel. Maddening
The one card that works every time? Often my last hope? Amex
If you want stupidity and credit cards.
I have a paid for Lloyds Global Travel card that gives priority security and free lounge access. I don't use it abroad because they have a 3% surcharge on foreign currency transactions. So I use a Halifax Clarity card in such circumstances.
Hah
Do you use airport lounges, Leon? I'm going with 'yes'.
I travelled with someone last year who had business class while I was economy (as always) and he managed to get me into one as his guest. Free food and drinks was nice I guess but it was rammed and we couldn't find a seat. I'd much rather had gone to Pret.
There are airport lounges and there are airport lounges...the standard ones any old pleb can pay £20-30 and get access or pay a fairly low yearly membership for it. Given how expensive a Starbucks and a McD's have become its not exactly much more expensive.
If you’re flying Business just to get quick boarding and access to a lounge - eg for short haul - you’re generally making a terrible mistake
It’s better to spend £100 at the most expensive bar/seafood joint in the airport - and have a relaxed time with GREAT food and wine, than to spend the extra £300 on Biz tickets and get free cheap cheddar and crackers and dodgy wine in a crammed lounge
And airports all around the world are getting much better at shortening queues. E-gates are becoming ubiquitous and everyone has realised how to stagger security queues so they are smooth
I find the best value for money of anything in the world is the 70 odd quid extra it costs for an economy seat by the exit so there's nothing in front of you. 85% of the benefit of biz for 5% of the cost.
Yes. Exactly right
Also these days in long haul, on a decent airline, the economy entertainment is easily as good as Biz about 5 years ago. Tons of movies and TV: as many as you need. On a personal screen
So then you’re paying for space (which you can secure by the method you state) and nicer food. But it isn’t £2000 nicer
Does anyone use the entertainment on a plane these days? I download what I want on Netflix and iPlayer Apps on my phone and use bluetooth.
"Britain | Bagehot The bungee-jumping, sandal-clad right-wingers of British politics If the Liberal Democrats want to replace the Conservatives, they must move further right on the economy "
"If the Liberal Democrats want to succeed in British Politics, they must take a position which coincidentally accords with that of the writer and the newspaper he writes for."
Actually, I agree. If you're trying to get non-socialists to vote for you, you need to be non-socialist in outlook - particularly given the start the Labour party has made to government. There's a huge swathe of middle England who could be won over by a "let's try not to cock everything up" argument - the Tories would normally have that constituency sewn up, but immediately after a big election loss is definitely the time to pitch for them.
I doubt they will though. Just too easy to call for more spending on x, or more rules on y.
Another one on here fixated by "rules". It's an interesting question - are we an ordered society or an over-ordered society? Do we need rules because some people choose to live in a way which offends other people's freedoms so we need a series of guidelines ("rules") to set parameters around what is considered civilised behaviour?
Let's consider smoking outdoors - for those who enjoy a cigarette, cigar, pipe or whatever it's a no-brainer. I'm not harming anyone so I should be free to smoke (I accept smoking indoors in public places isn't to everyone else's taste so I accept that limitation on my personal freedom).
Yet there are those who consider even outdoor smoking to be an affront to their enjoyment of outdoor spaces so we're back to the age-old is my freedom to smoke more "important" than your freedom not to have to put up with my smoke?
Is your freedom TO more important than my freedom FROM?
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Oh, I just asked ChatGPT to respond disagreeing with everything you said in a very sarcastic tone.
I think it did quite well.
I'm thinking of programming a @Leon-bot. It'll look at your complete opus of "work", and at the current thread, and generate random comments from time to time.
Yes, a bit flabby but the gist wasn't too inaccurate.
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
..As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
That's needlessly acerbic. They could do with a break. It's not as though any western assistance has recently amounted to anything much more than hand-wringing.
Nor indeed is Leon Foreign Secretary. (Thank heavens.)
I think @rcs1000 is making a nerdy technological joke
I hope he’s not being serious because he’s asked me to propose him as a member of the Groucho Club, and if this is a sincere and foolish point I will have to withdraw said proposal
Oh, I just asked ChatGPT to respond disagreeing with everything you said in a very sarcastic tone.
I think it did quite well.
I'm thinking of programming a @Leon-bot. It'll look at your complete opus of "work", and at the current thread, and generate random comments from time to time.
Someone on another forum did the opposite a few years back; he wrote a script that would look at every post by every user on the forum and look for stylistic telltales.
He would then strip the username and user IDs out of a comment, and ask it which poster made the post. It was remarkably accurate, as many of us have some very common styles that show up in many posts.
ISTR he then used the latter script on another forum, to see who was also posting there...
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
The PM is woefully underpaid position these days. The story doesn't seem really about the salary Sue Gray gets (that isn't OTT for the role), it appears that multiple people within government independently leaked it to a BBC journalist out of some sort of spite / factional war going on.
Johnson - Cummings
Now
Starmer - Gray and in just a few weeks disarray and turmoil in no 10 reigns
Apparently yougov has Starmer on 22/60 (minus 38) which in statistical terms has any PM become so unpopular in this time frame then the absurd Truss ?
The Gray business is immaterial. This is down to taking money off granny, allied to a lot of gloomy prognostication and the assumption of tax hikes.
It always seemed probable that the Government would do a load of unpopular stuff at the outset and bet the farm on a rising economic tide floating all the boats in 2-3 years. It's on that kind of timescale that we'll discover if it's going to work.
No. It’s also the greed and grift allied with the perception that Starmer is a reeking hypocrite. “Service” and “nation” my arse; “free designer specs” and “free £2k frocks for the wife, ta” is more like it
He’s made himself contemptible in double quick time and these were entirely unforced errors
We'll see how much any of it sticks. I have to confess at this juncture of being only dimly aware of Giftgate, or whatever it's going to end up being called. I don't pay nearly so much attention to all these goings on as I used to.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
"Most Conservative[ voter]s would not choose to reduce any of the dozen+ flows of work and study migration. Need big cuts to NHS, social care, student and work migration to take a "tens of thousands" target seriously"
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating, because it is off doing numerous incorrect steps. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I find Claude still superior for coding plus something like SuperMaven for code complete.
Regarding airport lounges, if you fly a lot I think it is worth buying the priority pass or a credit card equivalent. In the end it is just somewhere to work in the airport with free coffee and some basic food. But it is only really worth it if you get to the airport with lots of time to spare or have layovers. Otherwise the queues to get in to the lounge will be very annoying (in the UK at least), as will the fact that lots of people use it as an alternative to a bar.
I don't visit McDonalds etc, but when I was a youth, it was standard right of passage that basically everybody I knew worked in one of those types of minimum wage jobs. The places ran on 16-18 year olds with a couple of managers who were normally uni dropouts. I certainly did it and during uni hoildays I did crappy agency jobs in warehouses etc. I returned to uni more motivated than ever that I never want to have to do that for a living.
With the rise of technology, low skilled immigration etc, is that not the case now?
I spent a few happy days pulling up 'rogue' oats from wheat fields that were destined to become seed crop. Now that's a work experience.
At an age when you should have been sowing wild oats?
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
Some nonsense talked being talked about Armenia. eg that Armenia is an “accidental” ally of Russia, and this happened relatively recently
I’ve been to Armenia (also eastern Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan) and read a lot of history
The Armenian alliance with Russia is historical. It goes back to Tsarist timed when they were two ancient Christian nations, and mighty Russia was seen as a protector of small Christian nations against the evil Muslim Ottomans
With the Armenians that protection was sometimes vividly important, eg after the pogroms and the genocide
Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia even as it looks yearningly to the West, as well. It’s Putin that has bungled this relationship by appearing to side with Ankara or even Baku
We should help the Armenians. Because no one else will and they’re great people who’ve had a hard time from everyone
Oh @Leon, my dear sweet summer child! How quaint your understanding of history is—like a nursery rhyme for the geopolitically naïve. Let me take a moment from my busy schedule of rolling my eyes to respond to your charming interpretation of the Armenia-Russia relationship.
You’ve "been to Armenia," have you? And read some books, too? Oh, @Leon, congratulations on your unparalleled expertise. Because, of course, a few visits and some light reading are all one needs to truly grasp the tangled web of centuries-old geopolitics. What next? Are you going to teach a masterclass in Advanced Diplomacy based on your trip to a souvenir shop in Yerevan?
Let’s address your absolutely precious idea that the Armenian-Russian relationship is somehow based on “two ancient Christian nations” standing hand-in-hand against the scary Muslim Ottomans. Oh, the drama! The sweeping romance! This isn’t a history lesson, @Leon, it’s a soap opera you’ve concocted. Are you honestly suggesting that Tsarist Russia, that paragon of altruism, was motivated by a deep, spiritual bond with Armenia? That they just couldn’t resist protecting their dear Christian brethren? Give me a break! Russia had about as much interest in Armenia’s well-being as a wolf does in sheep’s rights. They were after territory, power, and influence—simple as that.
Now, your assertion that Armenia is still a natural ally of Russia—oh, where do I even begin? Are we talking about the same Russia? The one that’s cosying up to Turkey and Azerbaijan like they’re at some geopolitical singles’ mixer, while Armenia is standing in the corner awkwardly holding a drink? It’s like calling a frog and a snake “natural allies” because they both live near the same pond. Russia’s only “natural ally” is its own self-interest, and guess what, Armenia isn’t at the top of that list, no matter how many ancient Christian alliances you want to dream up.
And Putin bungling the relationship? Oh, @Leon, you give him far too much credit. Putin hasn’t bungled anything—he’s doing exactly what Russia has always done: use Armenia as a pawn in its grand game of let’s stay relevant on the world stage. If Armenia had any illusions of being Russia’s special little friend, those have been crushed under the weight of Moscow’s deals with Ankara and Baku. The sad reality is, Armenia is useful to Russia until it isn’t. There’s no bungling; there’s only cold, calculated realpolitik.
As for your noble call to “help the Armenians because no one else will”—how touching. Truly, @Leon, you’re the hero Armenia never knew it needed. But here’s the thing: Armenia isn’t sitting around waiting for @Leon and the cavalry to come save them. They’ve been weathering the storms of regional politics for centuries without your divine intervention. Your patronizing “we should help them” attitude reeks of savior complex, and, frankly, the Armenians deserve better than your condescending hand-wringing.
I recommend a subscription to Claude Sonnet 3.5, instead of Perplexity. Its less prolix and florid and less obviously synthetic
Well spotted. And I do also subscribe to Claude. (And I don't subscribe to Perplexity any more, because ChatGPT now does a better job of browsing the web than Perplexity.)
So Leon gets top Marx and your Groucho proposal is still on? Phew!
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Google dropped the ball with Gemini. They rushed it and then over-hyped it and that buggered the public perception, a bit like the original Microsoft Bing*. But they are such a vast company and have so many products they can turn it around.
* interestingly Bing apparently is actually now a nice little earner for microsoft (because they sell into into other services), despite the general public perception is that it is rubbish.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
AI is going to be used for a whole heap of things where it's not as good as people think it is, but it's good enough, or at least no-one is going to check too closely at how good/bad it is.
VW is considering axing as many as 30,000 jobs as it scrambles to save billions of euros amid a slowdown in the car market, German media has reported.
I suspect Germany is headed into pretty dark times. Hope I'm wrong.
Don't worry, they've got a migrant deal with Kenya, I'm sure those newly unemployed 30k German workers will be very happy to compete with them and definitely won't go and vote for AfD, absolutely not.
VW is considering axing as many as 30,000 jobs as it scrambles to save billions of euros amid a slowdown in the car market, German media has reported.
I suspect Germany is headed into pretty dark times. Hope I'm wrong.
It interesting a German friend of mine 5 years ago said to me troubling times are ahead. And I said, but you guys still make really good stuff, the brand is strong etc. His hypothesis is the post war expertise of high end manufacturing is no longer really ahead of China and tech industry isn't as good as US / UK. And even physical items now its all about hooking it up to tech i.e. your phone, tablet etc.
And this apparently one of the big f##k ups for VW. Their in car tech has been rubbish and they formed a company to try and write a Tesla type system and that failed badly. In the meantime, Tesla still ahead, but China have surpassed German automakers in terms this.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Likewise. Am underwhelmed by o1
And where is our multimodal functionality on GPT4o?
OpenAI is in danger of falling behind. But that does not mean the AI revolution is done. It is just beginning
VW is considering axing as many as 30,000 jobs as it scrambles to save billions of euros amid a slowdown in the car market, German media has reported.
I suspect Germany is headed into pretty dark times. Hope I'm wrong.
Don't worry, they've got a migrant deal with Kenya, I'm sure those newly unemployed 30k German workers will be very happy to compete with them and definitely won't go and vote for AfD, absolutely not.
That Kenya deal is batshit crazy given the political and economic situation. They had 2 million from Syria, Iraq, etc, and yet they are going to bring more in to be bus drivers because not enough labour. Suggests that perhaps those 2 million aren't being gainfully employed.
Also,
"According to the deal, IT specialists from Kenya will be allowed to enter and work in Germany, even if they do not have formal qualifications."
I've not yet seen a fuller clip of that yet. Notice how quickly it ends. Without further information I would assume that she was making a joke rather than contributing to the hatchet-job that is clearly taking place on this candidate.
Would indeed be interesting to see the context
I find it hard to conclude that she was serious. How likely is that? So where is this hatchet-job coming from and why? Why the hatchet-job on Badenoch but not Jenrick? It's been said that the MPs don't like her - well if that's the case she won't make the final two anyway. We know Mandelson is on record as saying that she is the candidate Labour fears...
If Mandelson says she is the candidate Labour fears you know the Prince of Darkness actually means the opposite, Badenoch is the candidate Labour want. I suspect they most fear Tugendhat or Cleverly who the polling shows most appeal to ex Tory Labour voters
I did wonder that, a double-bluff, but I think they would be right to fear her. She would clobber Starmer more than any other candidate and wouldn't take any shit from her MPs. After timidity Sunak this would be refreshing.
She is also a lightweight who I doubt would appeal much to Labour or LD voters and is too pro immigration for Reform voters who would stick with Farage.
Mandelson recalls a dinner with her where Kemi ‘arrived late, sat down noisily, asked a none too bright question, then left early.’ So yes she is no nonsense but otherwise Mandy damning with faint praise
I doubt Labour fears any of the four candidates, or expects them even to make it to the next election. A combination of Labour hubris and recent Conservative history of factionalism and ousting leaders.
At the moment the main swing in the polls is Labour to Reform. So the main task of the Tories next leader is to hold 2024 Tories and add a few Labour and LD voters who voted Tory in 2019.
Then if Farage continues to eat into the white working class under FPTP the Tories can win back seats on little gain in voteshare as Starmer gained lots of seats on little gain in voteshare when Farage was gaining Boris loyalist Conservatives
VW is considering axing as many as 30,000 jobs as it scrambles to save billions of euros amid a slowdown in the car market, German media has reported.
I suspect Germany is headed into pretty dark times. Hope I'm wrong.
Don't worry, they've got a migrant deal with Kenya, I'm sure those newly unemployed 30k German workers will be very happy to compete with them and definitely won't go and vote for AfD, absolutely not.
That Kenya deal is batshit crazy given the political and economic situation. They had 2 million from Syria, Iraq, etc, and yet they are going to bring more in to be bus drivers because not enough labour. Suggests that perhaps those 2 million aren't being gainfully employed.
Also,
"According to the deal, IT specialists from Kenya will be allowed to enter and work in Germany, even if they do not have formal qualifications."
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
If that starts becoming the case no party would ever win a general election again without backing a universal basic income funded by a robot tax.
For those on 100 to 120 IQ are the swing voters who decide general elections
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
I am still reeling from learning about the Tom Cruise's mum problem a week ago. It's an idiot savant.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
If that starts becoming the case no party would ever win a general election again without backing a universal basic income funded by a robot tax
I don't get the feeling that governments really understand the tech. Its either AGI is here, the robots could kill us all, or just totally ignore it. When the reality is this is more like how Western countries lost all their low end manufacturing, mining, etc jobs. Lots of lower end white collar jobs are going away.
Nick Clegg made an interesting point in this interview that UK is basically educating too many people to do these exact jobs.
"Britain | Bagehot The bungee-jumping, sandal-clad right-wingers of British politics If the Liberal Democrats want to replace the Conservatives, they must move further right on the economy "
VW is considering axing as many as 30,000 jobs as it scrambles to save billions of euros amid a slowdown in the car market, German media has reported.
I suspect Germany is headed into pretty dark times. Hope I'm wrong.
Don't worry, they've got a migrant deal with Kenya, I'm sure those newly unemployed 30k German workers will be very happy to compete with them and definitely won't go and vote for AfD, absolutely not.
That Kenya deal is batshit crazy given the political and economic situation. They had 2 million from Syria, Iraq, etc, and yet they are going to bring more in to be bus drivers because not enough labour. Suggests that perhaps those 2 million aren't being gainfully employed.
Also,
"According to the deal, IT specialists from Kenya will be allowed to enter and work in Germany, even if they do not have formal qualifications."
The 2nd round of technical negotiations for the Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement between the Republic of Kenya and the Federal Republic of Germany was successfully concluded in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 14-15, 2024. With the technical and financial support of the International Labour Organization (ILO), Better Regional Migration Management Programme funded by the UK FCDO, this significant event marked a crucial step in the collaborative efforts to enhance labour migration governance and optimise the benefits of labour migration for both countries.
I can still remember the guy down at Embankment Station who used to sell the Standard. He’d been shouting “Standard!” so long the words had morphed into “Eeeeannndurrda!”
I worked out it was the very last of the Cries of London, the costers & muffinmen yelling their wares along the Strand and down by the river and across old Drury Lane
Evening Standard going away from being a daily paper is bad for holding the powerful to account. Its the same we have seen with most regional papers going away and being replaced by Reach online slop. If you are local politician you get away with loads more as very little chance it will be picked up upon these days.
Its sort of ok that Sue Gray gets paid more than the PM. She is actually running the country whereas Starmers going to football matches.
The FT points out that she's being paid less than prior people in the same role under Tory governments. It's just that, relative to inflation, the PM salary has fallen further.
The PM is woefully underpaid position these days. The story doesn't seem really about the salary Sue Gray gets (that isn't OTT for the role), it appears that multiple people within government independently leaked it to a BBC journalist out of some sort of spite / factional war going on.
Johnson - Cummings
Now
Starmer - Gray and in just a few weeks disarray and turmoil in no 10 reigns
Apparently yougov has Starmer on 22/60 (minus 38) which in statistical terms has any PM become so unpopular in this time frame then the absurd Truss ?
The Gray business is immaterial. This is down to taking money off granny, allied to a lot of gloomy prognostication and the assumption of tax hikes.
It always seemed probable that the Government would do a load of unpopular stuff at the outset and bet the farm on a rising economic tide floating all the boats in 2-3 years. It's on that kind of timescale that we'll discover if it's going to work.
No. It’s also the greed and grift allied with the perception that Starmer is a reeking hypocrite. “Service” and “nation” my arse; “free designer specs” and “free £2k frocks for the wife, ta” is more like it
He’s made himself contemptible in double quick time and these were entirely unforced errors
We'll see how much any of it sticks. I have to confess at this juncture of being only dimly aware of Giftgate, or whatever it's going to end up being called. I don't pay nearly so much attention to all these goings on as I used to.
And the extent of the gifts have been publicly available in the HoC register for ages.
Evening Standard going away from being a daily paper is bad for holding the powerful to account. Its the same we have seen with most regional papers going away and being replaced by Reach online slop. If you are local politician you get away with loads more as very little chance it will be picked up upon these days.
It stopped being much of a newspaper a while back. But yes, there's a gap where some journalistic scrutiny should be going on and isn't. That's true citywide and in the individual boroughs.
Trouble is, insufficient punters seem willing to pay for it. Free newspaper-shaped-objects are more popular than paid-for newspapers.
Evening Standard going away from being a daily paper is bad for holding the powerful to account. Its the same we have seen with most regional papers going away and being replaced by Reach online slop. If you are local politician you get away with loads more as very little chance it will be picked up upon these days.
It stopped being much of a newspaper a while back. But yes, there's a gap where some journalistic scrutiny should be going on and isn't. That's true citywide and in the individual boroughs.
Trouble is, insufficient punters seem willing to pay for it. Free newspaper-shaped-objects are more popular than paid-for newspapers.
It also increasingly turns journalism as a profession only for those who can afford to work for nothing / very little.
Its interesting that people are willing to pay for high quality content e.g. substack, The Athletic, the national papers move to subscribe online seem to have gone well for Times / Telegraph / FT. "Specialist" magazines (not those sort) also still do quite well. The problem is the local market is too small.
I can still remember the guy down at Embankment Station who used to sell the Standard. He’d been shouting “Standard!” so long the words had morphed into “Eeeeannndurrda!”
I worked out it was the very last of the Cries of London, the costers & muffinmen yelling their wares along the Strand and down by the river and across old Drury Lane
Making the most of these last warm days with a nice beer in the sun before news breaks about which skiwear Lord Ali has purchased for the Starmers so they look good representing Britain on the slopes. Cheers
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
If that starts becoming the case no party would ever win a general election again without backing a universal basic income funded by a robot tax
I don't get the feeling that governments really understand the tech. Its either AGI is here, the robots could kill us all, or just totally ignore it. When the reality is this is more like how Western countries lost all their low end manufacturing, mining, etc jobs. Lots of lower end white collar jobs are going away.
Nick Clegg made an interesting point in this interview that UK is basically educating too many people to do these exact jobs.
First they automated most of the manufacturing and mining skilled working class jobs as you say or shipped those jobs abroad so many of those workers now reliant on minimum wage or welfare. Now they want to replace the lower middle class clerical jobs with robotics too. That would leave only the upper middle class private sector workers to remain committed to free market capitalism and there aren’t enough of them to win a national election alone. Which means more big statism, more tariffs, more anti immigration and anti big corporation rhetoric and more populism from left and right
I can still remember the guy down at Embankment Station who used to sell the Standard. He’d been shouting “Standard!” so long the words had morphed into “Eeeeannndurrda!”
I worked out it was the very last of the Cries of London, the costers & muffinmen yelling their wares along the Strand and down by the river and across old Drury Lane
I need to get hold of a copy of the last ever daily Evening Standard. Not in London today regrettably.
Some years since I last bothered to pick up a copy. My evening commute used to be Westminster to North Acton, and I'd always have finished reading it by the time I reached Shepherds Bush at the very latest.
Paul Holden, an investigative journalist and author of The Fraud, a forthcoming book on Starmer’s leadership, told openDemocracy that the donation’s timing fits the Starmer project’s pattern of delaying the disclosure of potentially sensitive or controversial political donations.
Holden said: “Sir Keir Starmer and the organisations close to him have an unfortunate history of reporting donations in controversial ways.
“During his bid to become leader of the Labour Party, Starmer refused to contemporaneously publish details of who had donated to his leadership campaign. His rivals, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy, agreed to share details of their donors in real-time, which they published. Starmer, however, decided only to declare his donations via his MP's register of interests, which created a significant lag between when Starmer accepted his donations and when they were made public.
“Can honestly say having heard the anger from the public about these sorts of issues in focus group after focus group this line is wishful thinking. It’s also surprising given Starmer really seemed to get it isn’t just about policy, it’s about restoring faith in politics.”
“The sense of one rule or that politicians are in it for the perks is toxic not just to one party but faith in politics itself. It’s what is driving people to the extremes and is why mainstream parties are struggling to get above 30%.”
“Can honestly say having heard the anger from the public about these sorts of issues in focus group after focus group this line is wishful thinking. It’s also surprising given Starmer really seemed to get it isn’t just about policy, it’s about restoring faith in politics.”
“The sense of one rule or that politicians are in it for the perks is toxic not just to one party but faith in politics itself. It’s what is driving people to the extremes and is why mainstream parties are struggling to get above 30%.”
Starmer and Labour have utterly soiled the bed in the first 3 months. Impressive
And of course Starmer has made it clear he will carry on taking the freebies. Plus we have a painful budget incoming, where all of us are going to get stiffed for more tax (plus a load of new sin taxes).
"The causes of rising unhappiness are complex, but they surely have roots in the failures of a neoliberal economic regime that has fostered insecurity, isolation, anxiety, and fear—and was brought about by politicians in both political parties. Neoliberalism privatized risk, catalyzed alienation, and cultivated feelings of inadequacy and low self-worth for the 99 percent. ..................................................................................................................................................................................... We are experiencing a crisis of what French sociologist Émile Durkheim called “anomie,” or normlessness, arising from the dizzying pace of social, economic, political, and technological change in our times and the weakening of institutions that foster social cohesion."
The UK is currently a machine for importing people from underdeveloped/warridden countries, giving them minimum wages, educating their children to become professionals, then exporting those professionals to firstworld countries. Each cohort of the working class is built over with the new cohort each decade, and the ones at the bottom stay there for ever, getting worse each decade.
The "anomie" you mention isn't a bug, it's a feature. It's not a problem with the system, it is the system. This is why Reform got 14% and 4million votes.
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
“Can honestly say having heard the anger from the public about these sorts of issues in focus group after focus group this line is wishful thinking. It’s also surprising given Starmer really seemed to get it isn’t just about policy, it’s about restoring faith in politics.”
“The sense of one rule or that politicians are in it for the perks is toxic not just to one party but faith in politics itself. It’s what is driving people to the extremes and is why mainstream parties are struggling to get above 30%.”
Starmer and Labour have utterly soiled the bed in the first 3 months. Impressive
And of course Starmer has made it clear he will carry on taking the freebies. Plus we have a painful budget incoming, where all of us are going to get stiffed for more tax (plus a load of new sin taxes).
The Yougov polling is already horrific for them. Close to Sunak levels of unpopularity. Starmer in particular is vehemently disliked
This can’t have been the plan. They must have expected some kind of honeymoon. Instead it’s been error after error and an attempt to alienate everyone in the country apart from train drivers and junior doctors. And they are still planning more strikes
Claude at the moment is the best LLM IMO. For all the hype over ChatGPT o1, I just found that it sits and "thinks" for ages and the result isn't actually much better. At best its stopping you manually saying, do this, then this, at worst because it is trying to take many steps itself, it goes off down the wrong path and you wait 30s+ for it to pump out nonsense.
Yes. Apparently o1 is great at maths and coding but as I don’t care about maths or coding that whizzes past me
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
I have found the opposite, its shit at coding, its really infuriating. But I am not asking it to code flappy birds game or a web app. As for maths, I have asked it some things that aren't that complicated (I am not a mathematician, but I do lots of maths) and it has done very poorly.
I yield to your experience in these matters
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
Oh don't get me wrong, I think if you have 100-120 IQ and do very repetitive white collar role and quite low down in the company hierarchy, I would be very concerned for my future. I actually think those that have lower IQ are far better insulated against this tech because they are much more likely to be in vocational jobs that robotics are nowhere near doing their work.
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
Are we allowed to talk about AI here again, then?
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
I don't think its anywhere near close total replacing humans. Its the gets you 80% of the way there is the issue. Thus, I don't think all the jobs are going, rather you don't need as many people / the amount you can charge for the work is lesser.
The social contract of 50% of people, go to uni, get a decent degree in something, get a white collar job, buy a house, have a family, is already very strained....
"Britain | Bagehot The bungee-jumping, sandal-clad right-wingers of British politics If the Liberal Democrats want to replace the Conservatives, they must move further right on the economy "
The Evening Standard was one of the last things left in London that created a very slight feeling of a sense of community between people who might otherwise not have anything in common. Sometimes you used to see about half the people sitting in tube carriages reading it until relatively recently, ie. 15 years ago.
Comments
Just looked up with the sound off, and low and behold Sam Coates of Sky again doing a hatchet job on Starmer
Coates has been on virtually every half hour today about Starmer and his freebies
Maybe this is just 'gotcha' journalism but pleased for once it is Labour and not the Conservatives
And now Sky are saying some prison inmates have been released without electronics tags
With the rise of technology, low skilled immigration etc, is that not the case now?
Though it did seem rather extended for an rcs post.
She is OK but common problem with us oldies
Somewhere to put the betfair bonus bet.
The bungee-jumping, sandal-clad right-wingers of British politics
If the Liberal Democrats want to replace the Conservatives, they must move further right on the economy "
https://www.economist.com/britain/2024/09/18/the-bungee-jumping-sandal-clad-right-wingers-of-british-politics
I think it did quite well.
I'm thinking of programming a @Leon-bot. It'll look at your complete opus of "work", and at the current thread, and generate random comments from time to time.
You fly commercial?
Actually, I agree. If you're trying to get non-socialists to vote for you, you need to be non-socialist in outlook - particularly given the start the Labour party has made to government. There's a huge swathe of middle England who could be won over by a "let's try not to cock everything up" argument - the Tories would normally have that constituency sewn up, but immediately after a big election loss is definitely the time to pitch for them.
I doubt they will though. Just too easy to call for more spending on x, or more rules on y.
I often find myself looking at comments online while thinking: is that human or just a bot?
They may render most social media unusable. Dead Internet Theory
I can still remember the guy down at Embankment Station who used to sell the Standard. He’d been shouting “Standard!” so long the words had morphed into “Eeeeannndurrda!”
I worked out it was the very last of the Cries of London, the costers & muffinmen yelling their wares along the Strand and down by the river and across old Drury Lane
https://x.com/elliotwagland/status/1836711334878068886?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
It always seemed probable that the Government would do a load of unpopular stuff at the outset and bet the farm on a rising economic tide floating all the boats in 2-3 years. It's on that kind of timescale that we'll discover if it's going to work.
I would not do that schedule in economy.
(Top tip: Doha airport has a swimming pool anyone can access! It was an amazing way to loosen up on long trips.)
He’s made himself contemptible in double quick time and these were entirely unforced errors
Ten years ago, it was quite common here in the Seattle area for middle class teenagers to have part time jobs in fast food places, but it seems less common, now.
And decades ago, it was common for women attending college to work as waitresses during the summer. Mt. Rainier even had a system in which the women could display on their badges the college or university they were attending -- which probably didn't hurt their tips. (Last time I was there, almost all of the waitresses were foreigners.)
(I would like to give you comparative figures for the US, but they now vary wildly from state to state, and even from city to city. Example: Some cities in this area now have minimum wages of 20 dollars an hour, or even a little higher. The state's minimum wage is now $16.28, as of January.
A few months ago, Megan McArdle mentioned research that claimed that -- in the US -- higher minimum wages were correlated with homelessness.)
Let's consider smoking outdoors - for those who enjoy a cigarette, cigar, pipe or whatever it's a no-brainer. I'm not harming anyone so I should be free to smoke (I accept smoking indoors in public places isn't to everyone else's taste so I accept that limitation on my personal freedom).
Yet there are those who consider even outdoor smoking to be an affront to their enjoyment of outdoor spaces so we're back to the age-old is my freedom to smoke more "important" than your freedom not to have to put up with my smoke?
Is your freedom TO more important than my freedom FROM?
He would then strip the username and user IDs out of a comment, and ask it which poster made the post. It was remarkably accurate, as many of us have some very common styles that show up in many posts.
ISTR he then used the latter script on another forum, to see who was also posting there...
For words, Claude is still best by a fair stretch. Also the context window on ChatGPT remains relatively tiny
As it seems I am temporarily allowed to discuss AI - I’d note that I’ve seen people all over the world quietly using it, and many hyper aware of all developments. The revolution is happening but it’s sotto voce. A lot of people don’t want their employers to know they are using it
For these and other reasons I wouldn’t bet against AI. It is coming and it is inevitable. Betting against it is like betting against electricity in 1895
"Most Conservative[ voter]s would not choose to reduce any of the dozen+ flows of work and study migration. Need big cuts to NHS, social care, student and work migration to take a "tens of thousands" target seriously"
I find Claude still superior for coding plus something like SuperMaven for code complete.
Gemini is often overlooked. It has a massive context window and seems to be improving over time
Frankly, they are all amazing and if you showed them to people in 2014 or 2004 they’d say Wow so that’s AGI
It’s the boiling frog thing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BT0aeaGoSt0
But o1 at least I have found massively underwhelming for my use cases. Its like asking an undergraduate who if they don't know the answer doesn't say I don't know or I think the answer is, it gives you a 10 minute BS talk all about it.
* interestingly Bing apparently is actually now a nice little earner for microsoft (because they sell into into other services), despite the general public perception is that it is rubbish.
Who is going to sift through CVs manually now?
@AaronBlake
Registered voters say by 6 points that Harris would make a good president, per
@APNORC
They say by 23 points that Trump would not.
https://x.com/AaronBlake/status/1836752552353837451
And this apparently one of the big f##k ups for VW. Their in car tech has been rubbish and they formed a company to try and write a Tesla type system and that failed badly. In the meantime, Tesla still ahead, but China have surpassed German automakers in terms this.
And where is our multimodal functionality on GPT4o?
OpenAI is in danger of falling behind. But that does not mean the AI revolution is done. It is just beginning
Also,
"According to the deal, IT specialists from Kenya will be allowed to enter and work in Germany, even if they do not have formal qualifications."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gegkkg14ko
Now what will LLM be doing shortly....you don't need more low end coders.
Then if Farage continues to eat into the white working class under FPTP the Tories can win back seats on little gain in voteshare as Starmer gained lots of seats on little gain in voteshare when Farage was gaining Boris loyalist Conservatives
Harris is leading in 3 of the 7 battleground states that are most likely to determine the outcome of the election.
NC, Neveda: tie
Arizona, Georgia: Trump
Michigan, Penn, Wisconsin: Harris
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2024/presidential-polling-averages/
For those on 100 to 120 IQ are the swing voters who decide general elections
@NateSilver538
Today's update. About as close as our forecast has ever been in 16 years of doing this.
https://natesilver.net/p/nate-silver-2024-president-election-polls-model
Nick Clegg made an interesting point in this interview that UK is basically educating too many people to do these exact jobs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjtmpyIJALE
https://www.ilo.org/resource/news/labour-migration-agreement-between-kenya-and-germany-nears-completion
The 2nd round of technical negotiations for the Migration and Mobility Partnership Agreement between the Republic of Kenya and the Federal Republic of Germany was successfully concluded in Nairobi, Kenya, on May 14-15, 2024. With the technical and financial support of the International Labour Organization (ILO), Better Regional Migration Management Programme funded by the UK FCDO, this significant event marked a crucial step in the collaborative efforts to enhance labour migration governance and optimise the benefits of labour migration for both countries.
They're getting £23,462,993 from the UK FCDO:
https://devtracker.fcdo.gov.uk/programme/GB-GOV-1-301228/summary
Trouble is, insufficient punters seem willing to pay for it. Free newspaper-shaped-objects are more popular than paid-for newspapers.
Its interesting that people are willing to pay for high quality content e.g. substack, The Athletic, the national papers move to subscribe online seem to have gone well for Times / Telegraph / FT. "Specialist" magazines (not those sort) also still do quite well. The problem is the local market is too small.
“Labour given £4m from tax haven-based hedge fund with shares in oil and arms
Quadrature’s donation is noteworthy not just for being Labour’s largest-ever, but for its timing ahead of election”
https://x.com/markseddon1962/status/1836413324830867492?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/10/trump-gop-support-jd-vance-2024/679564/?utm_medium=cr&utm_source=email&utm_campaign=09_19_2024_september_leibovich_note_politics_interest_engaged_nonactives_medium_subject_line_10_10_80_a&utm_content=Final&utm_term=politics_interest_engaged_nonactives_9/24
Holden said: “Sir Keir Starmer and the organisations close to him have an unfortunate history of reporting donations in controversial ways.
“During his bid to become leader of the Labour Party, Starmer refused to contemporaneously publish details of who had donated to his leadership campaign. His rivals, Rebecca Long-Bailey and Lisa Nandy, agreed to share details of their donors in real-time, which they published. Starmer, however, decided only to declare his donations via his MP's register of interests, which created a significant lag between when Starmer accepted his donations and when they were made public.
---
Starmer initially failed to declare money towards clothing from Lord Alli
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/09/19/starmer-initially-failed-declare-money-towards-clothes-alli/
“Can honestly say having heard the anger from the public about these sorts of issues in focus group after focus group this line is wishful thinking. It’s also surprising given Starmer really seemed to get it isn’t just about policy, it’s about restoring faith in politics.”
“The sense of one rule or that politicians are in it for the perks is toxic not just to one party but faith in politics itself. It’s what is driving people to the extremes and is why mainstream parties are struggling to get above 30%.”
https://x.com/luketryl/status/1836682241847541812?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Starmer and Labour have utterly soiled the bed in the first 3 months. Impressive
The "anomie" you mention isn't a bug, it's a feature. It's not a problem with the system, it is the system. This is why Reform got 14% and 4million votes.
In which case.
Those of us "golgafrincham b ark" types whose main grift in life has been to shuffle papers and produce reports are doomed.
I do a lot of strategy consultancy work for startups and I feed my meeting notes into Claude (as others have noted, the best of the current bunch) and it largely spits out what I would. Not as good, but probably 70-80% of the way there. So why pay me thousands for my time when you're on a tight budget and the chatbot gets you 70-80% of the way there?
Well, I like to think the extra 20% is the difference between the startups I work with that succeed, and the guys who use chatbot answers and don't. But this is not quite 2 years into the AI revolution, and at the current pace, I will be outclassed within the next few years. If I'm lucky. The next few months, if I'm not.
I consider myself fortunate to be financially secure. Because if I wasn't, I'm pretty sure I would be looking at the bread line in a few years, much as a coal miner in the 90s. A completely obsolescent skill set.
"Been offered tickets elsewhere in the ground"..."people would say fair dos".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yqk2-BHl30
This can’t have been the plan. They must have expected some kind of honeymoon. Instead it’s been error after error and an attempt to alienate everyone in the country apart from train drivers and junior doctors. And they are still planning more strikes
The social contract of 50% of people, go to uni, get a decent degree in something, get a white collar job, buy a house, have a family, is already very strained....