The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Airport lounges and airline frequent flyer programs are the most successful weaponisation of status anxiety in human history, with private schools a distant second. The lengths people will go to to drink mid-price wine surrounded by other smug boomers in their garden centre outfits is quite astonishing.
You have a point, but you're overdoing it. Airports are generally not relaxing or comfortable places, and lounges are relaxing and comfortable. They make a big difference to the travel experience. The freebies are a bonus, and everyone loves a freebie. I doubt many seek out tier points for the sort of social status reasons you suggest, though doubtless some at the upper end of the tiers do.
And then you get whichever holiday company it is offering complimentary lounge access if you book a holiday with them - their ad featuring an obnoxious family annoying everyone else. So perhaps sitting on the floor next to Pret isn't so bad after all.
Kids should be banned from lounges, and from flying business class. The lack of kids is the reason most of the rest of the customers are there in the first place!
Airport lounges and airline frequent flyer programs are the most successful weaponisation of status anxiety in human history, with private schools a distant second. The lengths people will go to to drink mid-price wine surrounded by other smug boomers in their garden centre outfits is quite astonishing.
You have a point, but you're overdoing it. Airports are generally not relaxing or comfortable places, and lounges are relaxing and comfortable. They make a big difference to the travel experience. The freebies are a bonus, and everyone loves a freebie. I doubt many seek out tier points for the sort of social status reasons you suggest, though doubtless some at the upper end of the tiers do.
I generally agree. A good airline lounge is a thing of beauty. An oasis of calm, ace snacks and good free booze amidst the stress and hurly burly of modern air travel
However I have been to some airline lounges (hello Nairobi) which ARE all about status. They are crowded and horrible and it’s much nicer outside but people surge in just to show they are entitled to be in a lounge. Quite wanky
Nairobi airport is absolutely shit. We were in a holding area for the flight back to London, wife pregnant and daughter seriously flagging, they decided that we didn't in fact need the AC on. My daughter almost vomited all over the place but I managed to get her head over a bin in time and after having a row with the idiots at the desk they finally turned the AC back on which had been off despite an almost planeload of people being ordered to this holding area and the plane not being ready to board. It's put me off ever going back to Kenya. Once we got on the BA flight everything was great but the airport staff were morons, the worst kind of petty jobsworths.
On topic, I fully agree with TSE. This is Westminster Wonkery at its finest (ie worst).
A government elected with a landslide majority has no cause to go to the country after two years. On what basis? Delivery? There won't be any because the only actual decisions the govt has taken so far have been to piss things off and make them (temporarily, one assumes Labour expects), worse. Mandate? It already has that, unless it wants to rat on a pledge. Preventative, before things really go down the pan? Hardly an inspiring message. To take advantage? Brenda from Bristol - and indeed the entire 2017 election - would have an answer to that.
And even if re-elected, then unless the Tories and Reform are both at each others' throats and failing to land blows on Labour, then Labour will lose seats. No matter how you spin it, that will take the shine off any victory and check Labour's momentum - as well as potentially costing some ministers their seats.
Just bloody govern and forget about the games. Governments have many structural advantages in the political game. If the country is in a decent, improved, shape come 2028/9, and Labour runs a capable campaign, they will win.
I wonder if the real lesson of the article is that Tim Shipman's contacts in the new government are less useful than the ones he had in the old one.
If we posted "Je suis Charlie", would that be in breach of the OSA?
Probably. For someone
The more I think about it the more I reckon PB cannot survive the OSA
Someone is bound to say something “distressing” and even if they never intended distress and even if it’s factual that’s no defined - AFAICS
And the fines are potentially enormous
Who will risk that?
Whilst there is clearly some risk on PB, surely the biggest risks come from saying things on the likes of X? Here there are perhaps a few hundred readers (at best) whereas if you posted something unintentional but unfortunate on X it could be read by millions.
X can probably afford the fines. Or it will ignore the fines and simply stop operating in Britain
PB can’t do either
Yes, but there is a pretty modest risk of causing real distress assuming that it's an accidentally unfortunate comment (I'm sure that happens sometimes!). However on the big sites there's no real way of controlling any wave of outrage that you might inadvertently provoke.
Let's hope this doesn't get put to the test though.
If we posted "Je suis Charlie", would that be in breach of the OSA?
The legislation will end up in the ECtHR, and will be found against if implemented anything like intended - which will be ironic given the views on the Court of the kind of people who will most likely benefit most from the case.
Airport lounges and airline frequent flyer programs are the most successful weaponisation of status anxiety in human history, with private schools a distant second. The lengths people will go to to drink mid-price wine surrounded by other smug boomers in their garden centre outfits is quite astonishing.
It's a nouveau riche thing isn't it?
People with actual class don't bother about this sort of thing.
Keir Starmer is a lawyer, not a politician. Labour staffers will be anxiously checking he's not bought a duck house.
A strange construction, 'a refurbishment worth up to £80,000'. Presumably they got the tv room surveyors in to do a valuation.
My guess is the room was being refurbished anyway and the Times has priced up some Farrow & Ball paint and a few rolls of posh wallpaper.
IIRC from previous refurbishments that there’s an annual allowance for maintenance of the No.10 and No.11 flats.
They’re listed buildings so you can’t just go to B&Q for a gallon of Dulux and a few rolls of own brand wallpaper, but the job is actually commissioned by the current occupants of each flat. It’s always going to be expensive, but the media loves a story even when they know the reasons behind it.
If we posted "Je suis Charlie", would that be in breach of the OSA?
Probably. For someone
The more I think about it the more I reckon PB cannot survive the OSA
Someone is bound to say something “distressing” and even if they never intended distress and even if it’s factual that’s no defined - AFAICS
And the fines are potentially enormous
Who will risk that?
Whilst there is clearly some risk on PB, surely the biggest risks come from saying things on the likes of X? Here there are perhaps a few hundred readers (at best) whereas if you posted something unintentional but unfortunate on X it could be read by millions.
X can probably afford the fines. Or it will ignore the fines and simply stop operating in Britain
PB can’t do either
Yes, but there is a pretty modest risk of causing real distress assuming that it's an accidentally unfortunate comment (I'm sure that happens sometimes!). However on the big sites there's no real way of controlling any wave of outrage that you might inadvertently provoke.
Let's hope this doesn't get put to the test though.
Wikipedia is an interesting one - it’s user-to-user content that, in spite of the editors ideological bias, has an almost pathological resistance to the removal of images of Mohammed in articles where it’s appropriate to show one.
Airport lounges and airline frequent flyer programs are the most successful weaponisation of status anxiety in human history, with private schools a distant second. The lengths people will go to to drink mid-price wine surrounded by other smug boomers in their garden centre outfits is quite astonishing.
It's a nouveau riche thing isn't it?
People with actual class don't bother about this sort of thing.
If we posted "Je suis Charlie", would that be in breach of the OSA?
Probably. For someone
The more I think about it the more I reckon PB cannot survive the OSA
Someone is bound to say something “distressing” and even if they never intended distress and even if it’s factual that’s no defined - AFAICS
And the fines are potentially enormous
Who will risk that?
Whilst there is clearly some risk on PB, surely the biggest risks come from saying things on the likes of X? Here there are perhaps a few hundred readers (at best) whereas if you posted something unintentional but unfortunate on X it could be read by millions.
X can probably afford the fines. Or it will ignore the fines and simply stop operating in Britain
PB can’t do either
Yes, but there is a pretty modest risk of causing real distress assuming that it's an accidentally unfortunate comment (I'm sure that happens sometimes!). However on the big sites there's no real way of controlling any wave of outrage that you might inadvertently provoke.
Let's hope this doesn't get put to the test though.
It is something of a lottery. I don't think the legislation will survive in its current form for all that long, once hard cases come up. Some poor sod will cop it first though, to be the example.
X withdrawing from the UK (or being banned) would likely be a popular move by many - although politics is won and lost at the margins, and while the left in general has good reason to hate Musk and what he's done to Twitter, there'll be plenty of Labour voters who would disapprove of censorship on that scale (or with that target), whether on free speech grounds, or because they're habitual Labour voters who like how X now is, or because they have some personal interest in X remaining functional.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Heck, even at 20k/year, payback time is a couple of months then.
I don't know how it gets fixed, but by golly it's one of the elephants in the room about the national mindset.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Agree. But I also think this focus on high earners is misplaced - your £80k manager/exec probably doesn't need a 32inch 4K screen and MX keys in the same way a £30k bookkeeper does.
If we posted "Je suis Charlie", would that be in breach of the OSA?
Probably. For someone
The more I think about it the more I reckon PB cannot survive the OSA
Someone is bound to say something “distressing” and even if they never intended distress and even if it’s factual that’s no defined - AFAICS
And the fines are potentially enormous
Who will risk that?
Whilst there is clearly some risk on PB, surely the biggest risks come from saying things on the likes of X? Here there are perhaps a few hundred readers (at best) whereas if you posted something unintentional but unfortunate on X it could be read by millions.
X can probably afford the fines. Or it will ignore the fines and simply stop operating in Britain
PB can’t do either
That’s a… how you say it? A Bingo!
There are also provisions in the bill for the Regulator to class certain sites as Major News Outlets. Which will have *less* liability.
What’s the betting that Twatter gets that designation? The Daily Mail will get it, practically automatically.
So comments on the Daily Mail will be held to a lower standard…
Airport lounges and airline frequent flyer programs are the most successful weaponisation of status anxiety in human history, with private schools a distant second. The lengths people will go to to drink mid-price wine surrounded by other smug boomers in their garden centre outfits is quite astonishing.
You have a point, but you're overdoing it. Airports are generally not relaxing or comfortable places, and lounges are relaxing and comfortable. They make a big difference to the travel experience. The freebies are a bonus, and everyone loves a freebie. I doubt many seek out tier points for the sort of social status reasons you suggest, though doubtless some at the upper end of the tiers do.
I generally agree. A good airline lounge is a thing of beauty. An oasis of calm, ace snacks and good free booze amidst the stress and hurly burly of modern air travel
However I have been to some airline lounges (hello Nairobi) which ARE all about status. They are crowded and horrible and it’s much nicer outside but people surge in just to show they are entitled to be in a lounge. Quite wanky
Nairobi airport is absolutely shit. We were in a holding area for the flight back to London, wife pregnant and daughter seriously flagging, they decided that we didn't in fact need the AC on. My daughter almost vomited all over the place but I managed to get her head over a bin in time and after having a row with the idiots at the desk they finally turned the AC back on which had been off despite an almost planeload of people being ordered to this holding area and the plane not being ready to board. It's put me off ever going back to Kenya. Once we got on the BA flight everything was great but the airport staff were morons, the worst kind of petty jobsworths.
Yes, a truly terrible airport
Matched only by Gatwick at its worst about 8 years ago in peak holiday season (it has since much improved)
Also City Airport, Verona, Incheon (no bars!), the budget terminal at Nice, and Luxor
On topic, I fully agree with TSE. This is Westminster Wonkery at its finest (ie worst).
A government elected with a landslide majority has no cause to go to the country after two years. On what basis? Delivery? There won't be any because the only actual decisions the govt has taken so far have been to piss things off and make them (temporarily, one assumes Labour expects), worse. Mandate? It already has that, unless it wants to rat on a pledge. Preventative, before things really go down the pan? Hardly an inspiring message. To take advantage? Brenda from Bristol - and indeed the entire 2017 election - would have an answer to that.
And even if re-elected, then unless the Tories and Reform are both at each others' throats and failing to land blows on Labour, then Labour will lose seats. No matter how you spin it, that will take the shine off any victory and check Labour's momentum - as well as potentially costing some ministers their seats.
Just bloody govern and forget about the games. Governments have many structural advantages in the political game. If the country is in a decent, improved, shape come 2028/9, and Labour runs a capable campaign, they will win.
We haven't had a government that "just" governed for many years. I suspect that this is partly because of the long periods in opposition before a new government was formed. Non-governing habits are formed that are difficult to shake off.
About the only thing I can praise Blair for is his good fortune in coming into government at a time of relative stability and choosing to (basically) carry on a continuity Major administration, domestically.
Given both Tory and Labour are suffering, I wonder if Westminster has collectively forgotten how to do it?
The Coalition 'just governed' in 2010-15. Sure, there were reforms there but they were ones that had been in the planning for years and more-or-less ready to go. It was change for change's sake, and it certainly wasn't politics for politics' sake. Arguably, Theresa May tried 'just governing', notwithstanding the 2017 election (which was arguably necessary given her precarious majority, subsequently proven by events after she and Nick Timothy cocked up the execution).
Just governing isn't about pure administration; it's about setting out a coherent plan for the 4-5 years and sticking to it. Though obviously the administration needs doing too, and doing well.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Agree. But I also think this focus on high earners is misplaced - your £80k manager/exec probably doesn't need a 32inch 4K screen and MX keys in the same way a £30k bookkeeper does.
Enable the excel grunts to get on with it.
The accounts office is always a good place to start with things like that. Because if they can see the immediate benefits of it, they’re way more likely to sign the cheques for other departments.
Bonus points for telling them that if everyone is more productive, that next hire for each department comes further down the line than otherwise.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
My wife got upset when I bought a 34” monitor for home working, with a gas piston monitor arm.
After a couple of months, I got her another setup. The same. So I could get back to my own desk…
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Agree. But I also think this focus on high earners is misplaced - your £80k manager/exec probably doesn't need a 32inch 4K screen and MX keys in the same way a £30k bookkeeper does.
Enable the excel grunts to get on with it.
Whenever I work with multiple screens I spend half my time trying to figure out where my cursor has gone.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Agree. But I also think this focus on high earners is misplaced - your £80k manager/exec probably doesn't need a 32inch 4K screen and MX keys in the same way a £30k bookkeeper does.
Enable the excel grunts to get on with it.
Whenever I work with multiple screens I spend half my time trying to figure out where my cursor has gone.
I'm the same. My brain can't deal with it - just use one big monitor.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Agree. But I also think this focus on high earners is misplaced - your £80k manager/exec probably doesn't need a 32inch 4K screen and MX keys in the same way a £30k bookkeeper does.
Enable the excel grunts to get on with it.
Whenever I work with multiple screens I spend half my time trying to figure out where my cursor has gone.
It’s actually cheaper to have one big screen now - you save on the stand/mount and you don’t need multiple graphics cards to drive it (yes, daisy chaining is a thing, but…)
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Agree. But I also think this focus on high earners is misplaced - your £80k manager/exec probably doesn't need a 32inch 4K screen and MX keys in the same way a £30k bookkeeper does.
Enable the excel grunts to get on with it.
Whenever I work with multiple screens I spend half my time trying to figure out where my cursor has gone.
Every new hotdesk I work on, first job is to set the display to exactly match the physical layout of the screens.
Off-topic: Do any of our academics have a view on MDPI nowadays? Specifically 'Journal of Clinical Medicine'. Are they still seen as junk publishers? I've been sent a review request for a paper that is in my field and which is making, from the abstract, some extravagant claims - it seems a run of the mill analysis claiming rather more. I don't want to waste my time if the journal is going to just rubber stamp it anyway.
(I don't generally review for journals I don't know nowadays, but this article is very much in my area, so considering it).
That said, I don't see a huge bump in approval for this government because I believe there is an ideological, rather than pragmatic angle to their approach to government. They will enact policies (cf VAT on schools, lying to the farmers) which accord with their ideological principles and, to invoke a phrase from of our greatest leader, they will eventually run out of other people to tax.
Labour don't help themselves by unforced errors and bad narrative handling. But the big reasons why any UK government will find approval hard going from 2024-2029 is that there is a huge gap between the cost of providing really well what the state does through our taxes and taxpayers willingness to pay for it.
BTW on R4 Today Jenrick and Robinson between them managed to be abysmally awful. Toe curling stuff on both sides.
Tories deffo dodged a bullet by not electing Jenrick.
If we posted "Je suis Charlie", would that be in breach of the OSA?
Probably. For someone
The more I think about it the more I reckon PB cannot survive the OSA
Someone is bound to say something “distressing” and even if they never intended distress and even if it’s factual that’s no defined - AFAICS
And the fines are potentially enormous
Who will risk that?
Whilst there is clearly some risk on PB, surely the biggest risks come from saying things on the likes of X? Here there are perhaps a few hundred readers (at best) whereas if you posted something unintentional but unfortunate on X it could be read by millions.
X can probably afford the fines. Or it will ignore the fines and simply stop operating in Britain
PB can’t do either
Yes, but there is a pretty modest risk of causing real distress assuming that it's an accidentally unfortunate comment (I'm sure that happens sometimes!). However on the big sites there's no real way of controlling any wave of outrage that you might inadvertently provoke.
Let's hope this doesn't get put to the test though.
Wikipedia is an interesting one - it’s user-to-user content that, in spite of the editors ideological bias, has an almost pathological resistance to the removal of images of Mohammed in articles where it’s appropriate to show one.
Wikipedia, it seems to me, faces a whole load of challenges ahead. You can imagine that there will be (no doubt are) all sorts of attempts to write bots to create fiction there. Perhaps we'll all have to revert to writing letters to one another and keeping an Encyclopedia Brittanica - although the horse may have bolted there given that the printed articles may be written by chatgpt.
I like Wikipedia, and it'll be a great shame if it's compromised. It is an odd organisation though - I recently rewrote my will, and thought I'd add small sums for some institutions I like - Uni, British Museum, that sort of thing. Anyway I considered wikipedia, but looking at the British bit of it rather put me off - seems odd!
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Agree. But I also think this focus on high earners is misplaced - your £80k manager/exec probably doesn't need a 32inch 4K screen and MX keys in the same way a £30k bookkeeper does.
Enable the excel grunts to get on with it.
Whenever I work with multiple screens I spend half my time trying to figure out where my cursor has gone.
It’s actually cheaper to have one big screen now - you save on the stand/mount and you don’t need multiple graphics cards to drive it (yes, daisy chaining is a thing, but…)
And Windows 11 finally makes it relatively easy to drag windows into split boxes on a single large screen. One 36” 4k screen is probably better than 2x27” at this point, for a nice home setup anyway.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
I still find it amazing how many people sit all day in an office working entirely on a laptop at their desk.
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Agree. But I also think this focus on high earners is misplaced - your £80k manager/exec probably doesn't need a 32inch 4K screen and MX keys in the same way a £30k bookkeeper does.
Enable the excel grunts to get on with it.
Whenever I work with multiple screens I spend half my time trying to figure out where my cursor has gone.
It’s actually cheaper to have one big screen now - you save on the stand/mount and you don’t need multiple graphics cards to drive it (yes, daisy chaining is a thing, but…)
And Windows 11 finally makes it relatively easy to drag windows into split boxes on a single large screen. One 36” 4k screen is probably better than 2x27” at this point, for a nice home setup anyway.
I just have the single screen too. To compensate though Windows 11 insists that I have 4 keyboard drivers and 5 mouse drivers! I've given up trying to work out why.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
Blimy, best not show our workshop manager that he'll be off there on triple (or more) the pay lol.
Ha, that’s probably one of the best shops in the whole country.
There was an interview on one of the F1 channels with James Vowles, who went from Mercedes to Williams, and said what most shocked him about the move was that his new team were using 10-year-old CNCs in the machine shop, because they’d not had any capital budget for a few years.
The first thing he told the board he needed was some decent new equipment in the factory!
While we are in a dissing Britain mood (or I am) it is worth noting that all the London airports have seriously improved in the last decade. Luton now has DART and immensely fast comexions to St Pancras. Stansted now has a faster train and all check ins and passports are by machine, so much smoother. Heathrow has T5 and the Queen’s Terminal plus the Liz Line. Even Gatwick has done *something* - not sure what, but it works, and they also now have Thameslink services direct through the Smoke
The sole exception is City airport, which has turned into the 19th Circle of Hell
That said, I don't see a huge bump in approval for this government because I believe there is an ideological, rather than pragmatic angle to their approach to government. They will enact policies (cf VAT on schools, lying to the farmers) which accord with their ideological principles and, to invoke a phrase from of our greatest leader, they will eventually run out of other people to tax.
Labour don't help themselves by unforced errors and bad narrative handling. But the big reasons why any UK government will find approval hard going from 2024-2029 is that there is a huge gap between the cost of providing really well what the state does through our taxes and taxpayers willingness to pay for it.
BTW on R4 Today Jenrick and Robinson between them managed to be abysmally awful. Toe curling stuff on both sides.
Tories deffo dodged a bullet by not electing Jenrick.
Yes, they did well to avoid someone who presents as being an unlikely combination of opportunist and single issue fanatic while sounding entirely unconvinced about anything. But did they walk straight towards another bullet?
That said, I don't see a huge bump in approval for this government because I believe there is an ideological, rather than pragmatic angle to their approach to government. They will enact policies (cf VAT on schools, lying to the farmers) which accord with their ideological principles and, to invoke a phrase from of our greatest leader, they will eventually run out of other people to tax.
Labour don't help themselves by unforced errors and bad narrative handling. But the big reasons why any UK government will find approval hard going from 2024-2029 is that there is a huge gap between the cost of providing really well what the state does through our taxes and taxpayers willingness to pay for it.
BTW on R4 Today Jenrick and Robinson between them managed to be abysmally awful. Toe curling stuff on both sides.
Tories deffo dodged a bullet by not electing Jenrick.
Yes, they did well to avoid someone who presents as being an unlikely combination of opportunist and single issue fanatic while sounding entirely unconvinced about anything. But did they walk straight towards another bullet?
Hard to doge the bullets for long when you're part of a circular firing squad
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
Blimy, best not show our workshop manager that he'll be off there on triple (or more) the pay lol.
Ha, that’s probably one of the best shops in the whole country.
There was an interview on one of the F1 channels with James Vowles, who went from Mercedes to Williams, and said what most shocked him about the move was that his new team were using 10-year-old CNCs in the machine shop, because they’d not had any capital budget for a few years.
The first thing he told the board he needed was some decent new equipment in the factory!
Vowles really seems to have his head screwed on right. Seeing how Williams does in 2026 in particular will be interesting. Hopefully they can make a step up.
For a backmarker team they have a ridiculously good driver lineup now. Edited extra bit: working on next podcast, all about driver lineups etc.
If we posted "Je suis Charlie", would that be in breach of the OSA?
Probably. For someone
The more I think about it the more I reckon PB cannot survive the OSA
Someone is bound to say something “distressing” and even if they never intended distress and even if it’s factual that’s no defined - AFAICS
And the fines are potentially enormous
Who will risk that?
Whilst there is clearly some risk on PB, surely the biggest risks come from saying things on the likes of X? Here there are perhaps a few hundred readers (at best) whereas if you posted something unintentional but unfortunate on X it could be read by millions.
X can probably afford the fines. Or it will ignore the fines and simply stop operating in Britain
PB can’t do either
Yes, but there is a pretty modest risk of causing real distress assuming that it's an accidentally unfortunate comment (I'm sure that happens sometimes!). However on the big sites there's no real way of controlling any wave of outrage that you might inadvertently provoke.
Let's hope this doesn't get put to the test though.
Wikipedia is an interesting one - it’s user-to-user content that, in spite of the editors ideological bias, has an almost pathological resistance to the removal of images of Mohammed in articles where it’s appropriate to show one.
Wikipedia, it seems to me, faces a whole load of challenges ahead. You can imagine that there will be (no doubt are) all sorts of attempts to write bots to create fiction there. Perhaps we'll all have to revert to writing letters to one another and keeping an Encyclopedia Brittanica - although the horse may have bolted there given that the printed articles may be written by chatgpt.
I like Wikipedia, and it'll be a great shame if it's compromised. It is an odd organisation though - I recently rewrote my will, and thought I'd add small sums for some institutions I like - Uni, British Museum, that sort of thing. Anyway I considered wikipedia, but looking at the British bit of it rather put me off - seems odd!
Their total yearly spend is shooting up but their hosting costs are functionally flat - all the extra cost is coming from salary and outreach/grants. It feels a bit wobbly in that regard.
Off-topic: Do any of our academics have a view on MDPI nowadays? Specifically 'Journal of Clinical Medicine'. Are they still seen as junk publishers? I've been sent a review request for a paper that is in my field and which is making, from the abstract, some extravagant claims - it seems a run of the mill analysis claiming rather more. I don't want to waste my time if the journal is going to just rubber stamp it anyway.
(I don't generally review for journals I don't know nowadays, but this article is very much in my area, so considering it).
Step 1: Go to reddit (https://www.reddit.com/) Step 2: Type in "MDPI" in the search box Step 3: Wait for the screaming to subside
'ANAS Sarwar has confirmed Scottish Labour will abstain on a vote on the Scottish Budget in an interview with the BBC.
It means the SNP should have the numbers to pass the Budget when it goes to a Holyrood vote before the end of February.
Sarwar further said that his party would only vote for the Budget if the Scottish Government “stopped pretending that this Budget lifts the two-child benefit cap”.
“As it currently stands, the two-child benefit cap is not lifted this year.
"If they do, we will support the Budget because we support lifting the two-child benefit cap,” he told Good Morning Scotland.'
And Graun feed:
'Sarwar told BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday morning Scottish Labour, which has seen its support in the polls plunge since November, would not obstruct the budget and might even support it:
"We, at this current stage, will abstain from this budget, because this budget is going to pass anyway. It has the votes of another political party, at least one of the opposition political parties, so we are not going to vote against this budget."
Labour is in a delicate position: the budget uses several billion pounds of extra spending provided by the UK Labour government, and will reverse the chancellor’s cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners in Scotland – a policy Sarwar supports'.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
They may not have formal qualifications but they're often highly skilled and highly experienced. With commensurate productivity and pay.
Whereas many in the service sector will be highly educated, and highly indebted, but with much lower productivity and pay.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
Exactly this. It should be noted that a couple of the recommendations require action by internet platforms.
It's easy to ask "does Starmer really want to be PM" or a variation thereof. Which I believe is to misunderestimate the thinking of a politician. Every, or most politicians want to rise as far as they can so as to be able to bring about the change they believe is necessary for the good of the country. Starmer is no different. He now has the Top Job in UK politics and I'm guessing he will hang on to it for as long as he is able to.
PMs are forced out, precious few walk away willingly.
I wonder which PM in modern times has made the best exit?
And much more importantly, what was their favourite airline?
Given that we’re no longer allowed to discuss anything that might upset anyone ever anywhere, especially thing thing and thing, you’d better get used to PB being the most tedious boozer in the world, full of entitled old gits discussing airline lounges and embittered old Nats comparing sporrans
That said, I don't see a huge bump in approval for this government because I believe there is an ideological, rather than pragmatic angle to their approach to government. They will enact policies (cf VAT on schools, lying to the farmers) which accord with their ideological principles and, to invoke a phrase from of our greatest leader, they will eventually run out of other people to tax.
Labour don't help themselves by unforced errors and bad narrative handling. But the big reasons why any UK government will find approval hard going from 2024-2029 is that there is a huge gap between the cost of providing really well what the state does through our taxes and taxpayers willingness to pay for it.
BTW on R4 Today Jenrick and Robinson between them managed to be abysmally awful. Toe curling stuff on both sides.
Tories deffo dodged a bullet by not electing Jenrick.
I thought exactly that while listening to him. Shortly followed by that fkker's not going away, is he? Whenever the next leadership election is, he'll be putting himself forward.
That said, I don't see a huge bump in approval for this government because I believe there is an ideological, rather than pragmatic angle to their approach to government. They will enact policies (cf VAT on schools, lying to the farmers) which accord with their ideological principles and, to invoke a phrase from of our greatest leader, they will eventually run out of other people to tax.
Labour don't help themselves by unforced errors and bad narrative handling. But the big reasons why any UK government will find approval hard going from 2024-2029 is that there is a huge gap between the cost of providing really well what the state does through our taxes and taxpayers willingness to pay for it.
BTW on R4 Today Jenrick and Robinson between them managed to be abysmally awful. Toe curling stuff on both sides.
Tories deffo dodged a bullet by not electing Jenrick.
I thought exactly that while listening to him. Shortly followed by that fkker's not going away, is he? Whenever the next leadership election is, he'll be putting himself forward.
He's definitely going to run again but a lot of his supporters within the membership will have moved onto Reform by then. I think he will struggle to win a vote with members regardless of who he's up against next time. I actually think he's more likely to defect to Reform in the run up to the GE.
It's easy to ask "does Starmer really want to be PM" or a variation thereof. Which I believe is to misunderestimate the thinking of a politician. Every, or most politicians want to rise as far as they can so as to be able to bring about the change they believe is necessary for the good of the country. Starmer is no different. He now has the Top Job in UK politics and I'm guessing he will hang on to it for as long as he is able to.
PMs are forced out, precious few walk away willingly.
I wonder which PM in modern times has made the best exit?
And much more importantly, what was their favourite airline?
Given that we’re no longer allowed to discuss anything that might upset anyone ever anywhere, especially thing thing and thing, you’d better get used to PB being the most tedious boozer in the world, full of entitled old gits discussing airline lounges and embittered old Nats comparing sporrans
And still you come back .....
Anyway, what's wrong with my sporran?
Sporran = Kilt = Men in skirts = people upset = OGH sent to Pentonville.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
Blimy, best not show our workshop manager that he'll be off there on triple (or more) the pay lol.
Ha, that’s probably one of the best shops in the whole country.
There was an interview on one of the F1 channels with James Vowles, who went from Mercedes to Williams, and said what most shocked him about the move was that his new team were using 10-year-old CNCs in the machine shop, because they’d not had any capital budget for a few years.
The first thing he told the board he needed was some decent new equipment in the factory!
Vowles really seems to have his head screwed on right. Seeing how Williams does in 2026 in particular will be interesting. Hopefully they can make a step up.
For a backmarker team they have a ridiculously good driver lineup now. Edited extra bit: working on next podcast, all about driver lineups etc.
Well he did spend the best part of two decades being mentored by Ross Brawn and then Toto Wolff, going from a team with absolutely nothing to one of the most successful teams in history. But yes, like most people in F1 he’s an exceptional individual, and it will be really interesting to see where they are in ‘26.
On driver lineups, Williams are well up there this year given that we have six rookies on the grid. Ferrari and McLaren with the strongest lineups.
'ANAS Sarwar has confirmed Scottish Labour will abstain on a vote on the Scottish Budget in an interview with the BBC.
It means the SNP should have the numbers to pass the Budget when it goes to a Holyrood vote before the end of February.
Sarwar further said that his party would only vote for the Budget if the Scottish Government “stopped pretending that this Budget lifts the two-child benefit cap”.
“As it currently stands, the two-child benefit cap is not lifted this year.
"If they do, we will support the Budget because we support lifting the two-child benefit cap,” he told Good Morning Scotland.'
And Graun feed:
'Sarwar told BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday morning Scottish Labour, which has seen its support in the polls plunge since November, would not obstruct the budget and might even support it:
"We, at this current stage, will abstain from this budget, because this budget is going to pass anyway. It has the votes of another political party, at least one of the opposition political parties, so we are not going to vote against this budget."
Labour is in a delicate position: the budget uses several billion pounds of extra spending provided by the UK Labour government, and will reverse the chancellor’s cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners in Scotland – a policy Sarwar supports'.
Narrator: Scottish Labour MPs voted against lifting the 2 child benefit cap.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
'ANAS Sarwar has confirmed Scottish Labour will abstain on a vote on the Scottish Budget in an interview with the BBC.
It means the SNP should have the numbers to pass the Budget when it goes to a Holyrood vote before the end of February.
Sarwar further said that his party would only vote for the Budget if the Scottish Government “stopped pretending that this Budget lifts the two-child benefit cap”.
“As it currently stands, the two-child benefit cap is not lifted this year.
"If they do, we will support the Budget because we support lifting the two-child benefit cap,” he told Good Morning Scotland.'
And Graun feed:
'Sarwar told BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday morning Scottish Labour, which has seen its support in the polls plunge since November, would not obstruct the budget and might even support it:
"We, at this current stage, will abstain from this budget, because this budget is going to pass anyway. It has the votes of another political party, at least one of the opposition political parties, so we are not going to vote against this budget."
Labour is in a delicate position: the budget uses several billion pounds of extra spending provided by the UK Labour government, and will reverse the chancellor’s cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners in Scotland – a policy Sarwar supports'.
Narrator: Scottish Labour MPs voted against lifting the 2 child benefit cap.
'ANAS Sarwar has confirmed Scottish Labour will abstain on a vote on the Scottish Budget in an interview with the BBC.
It means the SNP should have the numbers to pass the Budget when it goes to a Holyrood vote before the end of February.
Sarwar further said that his party would only vote for the Budget if the Scottish Government “stopped pretending that this Budget lifts the two-child benefit cap”.
“As it currently stands, the two-child benefit cap is not lifted this year.
"If they do, we will support the Budget because we support lifting the two-child benefit cap,” he told Good Morning Scotland.'
And Graun feed:
'Sarwar told BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday morning Scottish Labour, which has seen its support in the polls plunge since November, would not obstruct the budget and might even support it:
"We, at this current stage, will abstain from this budget, because this budget is going to pass anyway. It has the votes of another political party, at least one of the opposition political parties, so we are not going to vote against this budget."
Labour is in a delicate position: the budget uses several billion pounds of extra spending provided by the UK Labour government, and will reverse the chancellor’s cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners in Scotland – a policy Sarwar supports'.
Narrator: Scottish Labour MPs voted against lifting the 2 child benefit cap.
'ANAS Sarwar has confirmed Scottish Labour will abstain on a vote on the Scottish Budget in an interview with the BBC.
It means the SNP should have the numbers to pass the Budget when it goes to a Holyrood vote before the end of February.
Sarwar further said that his party would only vote for the Budget if the Scottish Government “stopped pretending that this Budget lifts the two-child benefit cap”.
“As it currently stands, the two-child benefit cap is not lifted this year.
"If they do, we will support the Budget because we support lifting the two-child benefit cap,” he told Good Morning Scotland.'
And Graun feed:
'Sarwar told BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday morning Scottish Labour, which has seen its support in the polls plunge since November, would not obstruct the budget and might even support it:
"We, at this current stage, will abstain from this budget, because this budget is going to pass anyway. It has the votes of another political party, at least one of the opposition political parties, so we are not going to vote against this budget."
Labour is in a delicate position: the budget uses several billion pounds of extra spending provided by the UK Labour government, and will reverse the chancellor’s cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners in Scotland – a policy Sarwar supports'.
Narrator: Scottish Labour MPs voted against lifting the 2 child benefit cap.
Edit: amended, sorry, I missed the shift to MPs. That fence is getting awfu jaggy on the collective bum.
Some on Labour said that about 2010 and they were out of power for fourteen years.
If Harris had won I think Labour would be in a decent place, navigating the effects of another Trump presidency looks very tricky to me. Some of the stuff Trump might do could cause us real problems.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
Met2analysis? (on the model of the 'cus2mer' for a customer's customer in a long-lamented column by a freelance IT contractor in a computer mag whose name I just cannot remember)
Some on Labour said that about 2010 and they were out of power for fourteen years.
If Harris had won I think Labour would be in a decent place, navigating the effects of another Trump presidency looks very tricky to me. Some of the stuff Trump might do could cause us real problems.
Trump's main targets for tariffs initially are the EU, China and Mexico it seems then possibly Canada albeit Poilievre might be able to cut a deal with him assuming he wins later this year. Ironically Brexit has put the UK at the back of the queue...for Trump's tariffs, even if we aren't going to get a US trade deal anytime soon either
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
Blimy, best not show our workshop manager that he'll be off there on triple (or more) the pay lol.
Ha, that’s probably one of the best shops in the whole country.
There was an interview on one of the F1 channels with James Vowles, who went from Mercedes to Williams, and said what most shocked him about the move was that his new team were using 10-year-old CNCs in the machine shop, because they’d not had any capital budget for a few years.
The first thing he told the board he needed was some decent new equipment in the factory!
Would those 10yo machines be of any use to anyone else? For how long?
Just thinking of the Marc Brunel block machinery - in use for 160 years and probably could have kept going if it weren't for the small matter of the RN not needing wooden blocks and sheaves any more ...
That said, I don't see a huge bump in approval for this government because I believe there is an ideological, rather than pragmatic angle to their approach to government. They will enact policies (cf VAT on schools, lying to the farmers) which accord with their ideological principles and, to invoke a phrase from of our greatest leader, they will eventually run out of other people to tax.
Labour don't help themselves by unforced errors and bad narrative handling. But the big reasons why any UK government will find approval hard going from 2024-2029 is that there is a huge gap between the cost of providing really well what the state does through our taxes and taxpayers willingness to pay for it.
BTW on R4 Today Jenrick and Robinson between them managed to be abysmally awful. Toe curling stuff on both sides.
Tories deffo dodged a bullet by not electing Jenrick.
Yes, they did well to avoid someone who presents as being an unlikely combination of opportunist and single issue fanatic while sounding entirely unconvinced about anything. But did they walk straight towards another bullet?
Possibly. But if so, smaller calibre - and not pointed at their feet.
What strikes me about modern Asia is that modern Asians are simply used to what they get. Excellent food, clean streets, hi tech everything, safe cities, almost zero crime, no terrorism, exemplary infrastructure, noodle chefs on demand, 5G networks in the middle of forests
Their quality of life is now in many ways superior to that of Europeans and it’s just expected
Clean streets? In India???
I think Brits and Americans have different popular definitions of "Asia". I wouldn't define India as "Asia", but some people do.
We had to remove over a dozen defamatory comments regarding the grooming story over the last few days.
That is the main reason why the grooming story is off limits for PB at the moment.
Given that it made no difference to the case of Lucy Connolly and others, what help is removing a post? Connolly's post was up for 3 hours before she removed it and she is in prison regardless. I'm not a lawyer but would think it is not sensible to admit to defamation as you did in your post. Whether or not a post is defamatory would need court-testing, surely?
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
We had to remove over a dozen defamatory comments regarding the grooming story over the last few days.
That is the main reason why the grooming story is off limits for PB at the moment.
Given that it made no difference to the case of Lucy Connolly and others, what help is removing a post? Connolly's post was up for 3 hours before she removed it and she is in prison regardless. I'm not a lawyer but would think it is not sensible to admit to defamation as you did in your post. Whether or not a post is defamatory would need court-testing, surely?
TSE is trying to protect the site, not the posters themselves.
Some on Labour said that about 2010 and they were out of power for fourteen years.
If Harris had won I think Labour would be in a decent place, navigating the effects of another Trump presidency looks very tricky to me. Some of the stuff Trump might do could cause us real problems.
Labour sending all those staffers over to help Kamala Harris, whether official or "unofficial" people can argue if they want, will certainly not have helped either.
Off-topic: Do any of our academics have a view on MDPI nowadays? Specifically 'Journal of Clinical Medicine'. Are they still seen as junk publishers? I've been sent a review request for a paper that is in my field and which is making, from the abstract, some extravagant claims - it seems a run of the mill analysis claiming rather more. I don't want to waste my time if the journal is going to just rubber stamp it anyway.
(I don't generally review for journals I don't know nowadays, but this article is very much in my area, so considering it).
I'd review it as normal, but accept that they might ignore your review...
Laughably I received an invitation to review a paper on the 23rd December with a 7 day expected response. I did not review said paper... I know that journals like to get reviewers moving and not everyone celebrates Christmas but still...
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
What we can say is that if were still in the EU, their manufacturing PMI output expectations would be a little bit higher. And the UK's would be a lot lower.
The frustrating thing about Starmer's failure to get growth moving is that it is missing the opportunity to actually get the UK some benefit from Brexit, rather than being shackled to a hospital bed with a patient not so much suffering from a bad cold as pneumonia...
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
Blimy, best not show our workshop manager that he'll be off there on triple (or more) the pay lol.
Ha, that’s probably one of the best shops in the whole country.
There was an interview on one of the F1 channels with James Vowles, who went from Mercedes to Williams, and said what most shocked him about the move was that his new team were using 10-year-old CNCs in the machine shop, because they’d not had any capital budget for a few years.
The first thing he told the board he needed was some decent new equipment in the factory!
Would those 10yo machines be of any use to anyone else? For how long?
Just thinking of the Marc Brunel block machinery - in use for 160 years and probably could have kept going if it weren't for the small matter of the RN not needing wooden blocks and sheaves any more ...
I imagine that anyone who doesn’t need a five-axis liquid-cooled 100-tool micron-resolution fire-and-forget monster costing several million, which let’s face it is going to be 99.99% of us who aren’t making prototype racecars or engines for aeroplanes, could probably find a good home for an ‘old’ one in their garage!
The decent models will run for decades, so long as you can get spare parts and can find software to write the appropriate file format for any new projects.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
Blimy, best not show our workshop manager that he'll be off there on triple (or more) the pay lol.
Ha, that’s probably one of the best shops in the whole country.
There was an interview on one of the F1 channels with James Vowles, who went from Mercedes to Williams, and said what most shocked him about the move was that his new team were using 10-year-old CNCs in the machine shop, because they’d not had any capital budget for a few years.
The first thing he told the board he needed was some decent new equipment in the factory!
Would those 10yo machines be of any use to anyone else? For how long?
Just thinking of the Marc Brunel block machinery - in use for 160 years and probably could have kept going if it weren't for the small matter of the RN not needing wooden blocks and sheaves any more ...
I dunno. Ukraine has taught us how quickly the Russians pulled old kit out of storage as the newer stuff got destroyed and couldn’t be quickly replaced. Come WWIII we may yet press HMS Victory into service and rue the day we lost the ability to throw together some sloops to accompany her.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
Meta-analysis of clinical trials is a well-known discipline - notably useful in picking out which trials are valid and which are e.g. too small to be statistically useful.
Madrid trip abandoned and refunded. No sign of my 06:00 flight to Amsterdam actually leaving, no seats left on remaining connections from AMS. And it’s blizzarding as I start the trek home.
Would like to thanks my friends at KLM though. I got 90 minutes of relaxation on their plane, a coffee brought to my seat, and when I got off a £9 voucher which I spent in Costa. All for the princely sum of £0 after the refund 😂
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
Blimy, best not show our workshop manager that he'll be off there on triple (or more) the pay lol.
Ha, that’s probably one of the best shops in the whole country.
There was an interview on one of the F1 channels with James Vowles, who went from Mercedes to Williams, and said what most shocked him about the move was that his new team were using 10-year-old CNCs in the machine shop, because they’d not had any capital budget for a few years.
The first thing he told the board he needed was some decent new equipment in the factory!
Would those 10yo machines be of any use to anyone else? For how long?
Just thinking of the Marc Brunel block machinery - in use for 160 years and probably could have kept going if it weren't for the small matter of the RN not needing wooden blocks and sheaves any more ...
I imagine that anyone who doesn’t need a five-axis liquid-cooled 100-tool micron-resolution fire-and-forget monster costing several million, which let’s face it is going to be 99.99% of us who aren’t making prototype racecars or engines for aeroplanes, could probably find a good home for an ‘old’ one in their garage!
The decent models will run for decades, so long as you can get spare parts and can find software to write the appropriate file format for any new projects.
Will I be ok with the 60 amp supply to my garage? If so, I’ll take two.
The Brexiteers were right. The EU has fossilised European economies, strangled innovation, and its freedoms mean - inter alia - that the immigration madness of one country (hello Germany) is inflicted on all the others
The fact that the UK has totally fucked up Brexit and not seized its opportunities does not negate this truth. The brexiteers’ diagnosis of the EU was bang on
Even the seemingly far-fetched boom in manufacturing has appeared:
Opinions might vary on whether that is due to Brexit, I suppose. But still.
UK manufacturing is really interesting. Still a relatively large sector, and once you start speaking with people working in it you realise just how much advanced work is going on, often by people without formal qualifications working for local companies in their hometown
I was looking into some rather clever green tech for one of the charities I help out with and was to astonished to find it was made a mile away from where I went to school.
It's one sector where what's left is highly productive and automated, in contrast with most of our dominant services sector that's filled with low cost labour and under-investment. Not enough of it of course, but much of what's left is like drug-resistant bacteria, battered for decades by global headwinds so what survives is a particularly resistant strain.
Yes. This firm only employs about 30 people FTE, but had no qualms at all about spending £100,000s on a new bit of kit to polish something a bit better. You can't imagine your typical services firm doing that kind of investment.
And it's extremely telling that most offices I go into have kit that is significantly worse than my WFH set up, and almost all my colleagues bring their own keyboards/mice in. It's pathetic.
People moan about the government not doing enough investment, but it's a culture that persists throughout the economy outside the top consultancies.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
Blimy, best not show our workshop manager that he'll be off there on triple (or more) the pay lol.
Ha, that’s probably one of the best shops in the whole country.
There was an interview on one of the F1 channels with James Vowles, who went from Mercedes to Williams, and said what most shocked him about the move was that his new team were using 10-year-old CNCs in the machine shop, because they’d not had any capital budget for a few years.
The first thing he told the board he needed was some decent new equipment in the factory!
Vowles really seems to have his head screwed on right. Seeing how Williams does in 2026 in particular will be interesting. Hopefully they can make a step up.
For a backmarker team they have a ridiculously good driver lineup now. Edited extra bit: working on next podcast, all about driver lineups etc.
Well he did spend the best part of two decades being mentored by Ross Brawn and then Toto Wolff, going from a team with absolutely nothing to one of the most successful teams in history. But yes, like most people in F1 he’s an exceptional individual, and it will be really interesting to see where they are in ‘26.
On driver lineups, Williams are well up there this year given that we have six rookies on the grid. Ferrari and McLaren with the strongest lineups.
Aye, after a long period of being conservative F1 collectively decided to bring in a ton of fresh blood for the forthcoming season.
Can argue the toss, but Williams likely have the best lineup outside of the top four.
Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 15m Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, is considering running for leadership of Canada’s Liberal party after prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation this week
Off-topic: Do any of our academics have a view on MDPI nowadays? Specifically 'Journal of Clinical Medicine'. Are they still seen as junk publishers? I've been sent a review request for a paper that is in my field and which is making, from the abstract, some extravagant claims - it seems a run of the mill analysis claiming rather more. I don't want to waste my time if the journal is going to just rubber stamp it anyway.
(I don't generally review for journals I don't know nowadays, but this article is very much in my area, so considering it).
I'd review it as normal, but accept that they might ignore your review...
Laughably I received an invitation to review a paper on the 23rd December with a 7 day expected response. I did not review said paper... I know that journals like to get reviewers moving and not everyone celebrates Christmas but still...
Nice. We got sent some article proofs on the 24th. Just people clearing their desks, I guess.
I'll maybe have a look at the review if I have time. The authors look legit and the abstract reads ok, probably just a bit of a nothing paper that they can't get any of the proper journals to publish.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
Meta-analysis of clinical trials is a well-known discipline - notably useful in picking out which trials are valid and which are e.g. too small to be statistically useful.
In my time close to, but not in, a Medical Information Dept we used occasionally refer to the Journal of Irreproducible Results. Frequently, sadly, quoted by representatives from the scruffier corners of the pharmaceutical industry.
GE in 27? Can't see that. The sense I'm getting is of the toddler in the back of the car chirping "when are we there? when are we there?" before we've even made the motorway. I think people should relax a bit more into the reality of several years, and likely a decade, of Labour government. Easy for me to say, I know, as a supporter of it, but I think it's a good approach for Tories and far righters too.
Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 15m Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, is considering running for leadership of Canada’s Liberal party after prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation this week
Yes, that will help the Liberal party against Polievre. They'll go from taking a hiding to it being existential if Mark Carney wins. This is the same as someone watching the West Wing and suggesting that President Bartlett could actually win in America today. Mark Carney is the epitome of the Davos "citizen of nowhere". Polievre will make mincemeat of him.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
Ferranti (as was) used to mill the waveguides for their radar systems. The main workpiece was a flat aluminium plate about 20mm thick and 200mm square with the guide slots milled into it, but there was a cover plate that had to align on a number of locating pegs protruding from the base. The pegs were maybe 1mm diameter and 2mm tall, so the entire surface of the base was milled away except for the locating pegs. Very cool at the time
I will be travelling LON-KIX in a few months but my plans are on hold due to a family illness issue in Australia. At short notice I may have to do LON-KIX then Brisbane / Sydney / Hobart / Perth / London. Is there an open ticket for this sort of thing or a travel specialist in London I could consult?
GE in 27? Can't see that. The sense I'm getting is of the toddler in the back of the car chirping "when are we there? when are we there?" before we've even made the motorway. I think people should relax a bit more into the reality of several years, and likely a decade, of Labour government. Easy for me to say, I know, as a supporter of it, but I think it's a good approach for Tories and far righters too.
IIRC something like that was what we all felt in 2010; there was a Coalition Government with a solid majority, and while there were odd bumps on the road, notably Chris Huhne, we all expected it to last until 2015.
What strikes me about modern Asia is that modern Asians are simply used to what they get. Excellent food, clean streets, hi tech everything, safe cities, almost zero crime, no terrorism, exemplary infrastructure, noodle chefs on demand, 5G networks in the middle of forests
Their quality of life is now in many ways superior to that of Europeans and it’s just expected
Clean streets? In India???
I think Brits and Americans have different popular definitions of "Asia". I wouldn't define India as "Asia", but some people do.
Guide for Americans:
West Asia / Middle East = Oil, Muslims South Asia / Subcontinent = Cricket, Hindus East Asia / Far East = Electronics, Buddhists North Asia / Siberia = Unpopulated Russia
Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 15m Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, is considering running for leadership of Canada’s Liberal party after prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation this week
Yes, that will help the Liberal party against Polievre. They'll go from taking a hiding to it being existential if Mark Carney wins. This is the same as someone watching the West Wing and suggesting that President Bartlett could actually win in America today. Mark Carney is the epitome of the Davos "citizen of nowhere". Polievre will make mincemeat of him.
Unfortunately true. Even worse, it's not unprecedented for an expert in one subject to think they can have a shot of that Canadian PM lark and falling on their arse: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ignatieff
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
Meta-analysis of clinical trials is a well-known discipline - notably useful in picking out which trials are valid and which are e.g. too small to be statistically useful.
Indeed. Systematic reviews, particularly with meta-analyses, have an important role. Unfortunately, they're also low hanging fruit in some areas for people looking for papers that can be done on the cheap and can be done badly - particularly, but not always - when a meta analysis is not possible or, of course, when all the source papers are garbage.
Those with proper standards, like the Cochrane reviews, are very useful.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
Meta-analysis of clinical trials is a well-known discipline - notably useful in picking out which trials are valid and which are e.g. too small to be statistically useful.
In my time close to, but not in, a Medical Information Dept we used occasionally refer to the Journal of Irreproducible Results. Frequently, sadly, quoted by representatives from the scruffier corners of the pharmaceutical industry.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
Meta-analysis of clinical trials is a well-known discipline - notably useful in picking out which trials are valid and which are e.g. too small to be statistically useful.
Indeed. Systematic reviews, particularly with meta-analyses, have an important role. Unfortunately, they're also low hanging fruit in some areas for people looking for papers that can be done on the cheap and can be done badly - particularly, but not always - when a meta analysis is not possible or, of course, when all the source papers are garbage.
Those with proper standards, like the Cochrane reviews, are very useful.
The Cochranes are precisely what I had in mind. But you're right about the shitey end of the research stick.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
Meta-analysis of clinical trials is a well-known discipline - notably useful in picking out which trials are valid and which are e.g. too small to be statistically useful.
I know. I contributed to one just before Xmas But my point still holds.
What strikes me about modern Asia is that modern Asians are simply used to what they get. Excellent food, clean streets, hi tech everything, safe cities, almost zero crime, no terrorism, exemplary infrastructure, noodle chefs on demand, 5G networks in the middle of forests
Their quality of life is now in many ways superior to that of Europeans and it’s just expected
Clean streets? In India???
I think Brits and Americans have different popular definitions of "Asia". I wouldn't define India as "Asia", but some people do.
Guide for Americans:
West Asia / Middle East = Oil, Muslims South Asia / Subcontinent = Cricket, Hindus East Asia / Far East = Electronics, Buddhists North Asia / Siberia = Unpopulated Russia
And of course the People's Republic of China. Literally "Middle Kingdom" (Zhong guo)
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
Ferranti (as was) used to mill the waveguides for their radar systems. The main workpiece was a flat aluminium plate about 20mm thick and 200mm square with the guide slots milled into it, but there was a cover plate that had to align on a number of locating pegs protruding from the base. The pegs were maybe 1mm diameter and 2mm tall, so the entire surface of the base was milled away except for the locating pegs. Very cool at the time
That’s hobbyist stuff, now
Did something vaguely similar - a steel base for a stationary steam engine. Was for an engineering course.
Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 15m Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, is considering running for leadership of Canada’s Liberal party after prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation this week
Yes, that will help the Liberal party against Polievre. They'll go from taking a hiding to it being existential if Mark Carney wins. This is the same as someone watching the West Wing and suggesting that President Bartlett could actually win in America today. Mark Carney is the epitome of the Davos "citizen of nowhere". Polievre will make mincemeat of him.
Yeah it's probably a terrible move, but he was a fantastic BoE governor if you were a homeowner lol.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
Meta-analysis of clinical trials is a well-known discipline - notably useful in picking out which trials are valid and which are e.g. too small to be statistically useful.
Indeed. Systematic reviews, particularly with meta-analyses, have an important role. Unfortunately, they're also low hanging fruit in some areas for people looking for papers that can be done on the cheap and can be done badly - particularly, but not always - when a meta analysis is not possible or, of course, when all the source papers are garbage.
Those with proper standards, like the Cochrane reviews, are very useful.
The Cochranes are precisely what I had in mind. But you're right about the shitey end of the research stick.
Cochranes are bloody difficult and *really* formalised: the reviewers will nitpick everything (as they should). But there is a tickle in the back of my head that says "this is just substituting process for analysis". But but, it's good discipline.
Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 15m Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, is considering running for leadership of Canada’s Liberal party after prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation this week
Yes, that will help the Liberal party against Polievre. They'll go from taking a hiding to it being existential if Mark Carney wins. This is the same as someone watching the West Wing and suggesting that President Bartlett could actually win in America today. Mark Carney is the epitome of the Davos "citizen of nowhere". Polievre will make mincemeat of him.
Yeah it's probably a terrible move, but he was a fantastic BoE governor if you were a homeowner lol.
Indeed, especially if you ended up selling a centralish London flat to buy an outer London house. 😄
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
Um... my research is done at a desk
Some of mine was too - analysing data from other people's papers to test my new theoretical models.* Though I got mucky often enough in the lab and field to keep Viewcode happy, I hope.
*Edit: not the sort of statistical analysis where that can be dodgy ...
Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social · 15m Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, is considering running for leadership of Canada’s Liberal party after prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation this week
Yes, that will help the Liberal party against Polievre. They'll go from taking a hiding to it being existential if Mark Carney wins. This is the same as someone watching the West Wing and suggesting that President Bartlett could actually win in America today. Mark Carney is the epitome of the Davos "citizen of nowhere". Polievre will make mincemeat of him.
He won't get it anyway, he is not even a Canadian MP, most likely it will be Trudeau's former Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. Angus Reid has a poll with Freeland increasing the Liberal vote by 8% relative to Trudeau but Carney only increasing it by 1%. Carney cuts the Conservative voteshare to 36% as Freeland does but increases the NDP vote to 18% while Freeland keeps it down at 14% https://angusreid.org/the-freeland-factor-liberal-leadership/
GE in 27? Can't see that. The sense I'm getting is of the toddler in the back of the car chirping "when are we there? when are we there?" before we've even made the motorway. I think people should relax a bit more into the reality of several years, and likely a decade, of Labour government. Easy for me to say, I know, as a supporter of it, but I think it's a good approach for Tories and far righters too.
IIRC something like that was what we all felt in 2010; there was a Coalition Government with a solid majority, and while there were odd bumps on the road, notably Chris Huhne, we all expected it to last until 2015.
The weird difference is that the rapid collapse of Starmerism is being spoken about in excited tones by people who aren't visibly crazy. See that poll in the Mail on Sunday. (Insert joke about the Mail here.)
There are differences, the pace of the news cycle and the number of enemies Starmer already has for starters.
But also, at some level, the right are really bad losers. Which is a factor in why they win so often, but also leaves them really discombobulated when defeat happens.
The Tories are set to table an amendment to the children's wellbeing bill and Labour will be forced to oppose it which I think gets the Tories exactly what they want on the scandal. Labour opposing a statutory national inquiry on the subject with the Tories in favour of one, on the record. I think by the time the vote comes around Labour will have realised how awful the optics will be for them and they'll end up voting for it or something similar from the Labour benches.
Starmer has got absolutely zero political instincts, if he had he'd already be ahead of this and have called the inquiry on his own terms. This will now get forced on him at much less favourable terms because there's just too much public anger about it to ignore now.
Maggie Oliver excoriating on the radio this morning regarding Starmer.
Prof Alexis Jay basically admitting that the current wave of public anger has forced Labour into accepting the recommendations of her limited inquiry. She spared the governments blushes by remaining silent on whether she thought they'd have done it without being backed into this corner but it was very telling.
Having it on record that Labour opposed it and the Tories in favour will be, IMO, terminal for Labour in red wall seats. Reform will sweep the board against the party that refused to hold a full national inquiry about the safety of their daughters and voted against it. Every single Labour MP that votes against the Tory amendment will get barraged with it in the election campaign.
What exactly does anyone expect to come out of a national inquiry that has not already come out?
Spending several more years hearing the same evidence - and renewing the trauma for those involved, incidentally - while inevitably delaying taking action because why implement recommendations from existing reports when the national inquiry might say something different? - is not just wasteful but shameful.
We know what we need to know. Collate the existing recommendations, scale them up as necessary and implement them.
So, in research, we do the same shit over and over (well, different teams do the same shit over and over). Then we* collect up the results of all that shit and collate it all into a systematic review. People do this over and over. Then we collate those reviews into an umbrella review. Increasingly people are doing that over and over. The current frontier of research is coming up with a name for a review of a collection of umbrella reviews. I'm pushing for 'gazebo review'
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
This point - about research degenerating into looking at other research - is an explicit plot point in the Foundation series, and indicates a rotting civilisation. People think research is done at desks, and it just isn't.
Um... my research is done at a desk
As is mine - well more specifically, the statistical contributions to somebody else's research, but I get named so it's all good
But if you are doing something with real-world implications, you have to check it against the real world, and we are losing sight of that. The map is not the territory and a' that.
Comments
If a half-decent screen and keyboard costs £250, how long does it take before the productivity improvements are positive for someone on say £80k/year? I reckon no longer than a fortnight.
My company accountant used to work for an audit firm so was in a different customer’s office every week. Now she sits in a nice office - with a Surface tab with its 11” screen and flimsy keyboard, says she’s used to it and just likes it that way! :shrug:
Let's hope this doesn't get put to the test though.
People with actual class don't bother about this sort of thing.
They’re listed buildings so you can’t just go to B&Q for a gallon of Dulux and a few rolls of own brand wallpaper, but the job is actually commissioned by the current occupants of each flat. It’s always going to be expensive, but the media loves a story even when they know the reasons behind it.
X withdrawing from the UK (or being banned) would likely be a popular move by many - although politics is won and lost at the margins, and while the left in general has good reason to hate Musk and what he's done to Twitter, there'll be plenty of Labour voters who would disapprove of censorship on that scale (or with that target), whether on free speech grounds, or because they're habitual Labour voters who like how X now is, or because they have some personal interest in X remaining functional.
I don't know how it gets fixed, but by golly it's one of the elephants in the room about the national mindset.
Enable the excel grunts to get on with it.
There are also provisions in the bill for the Regulator to class certain sites as Major News Outlets. Which will have *less* liability.
What’s the betting that Twatter gets that designation? The Daily Mail will get it, practically automatically.
So comments on the Daily Mail will be held to a lower standard…
Matched only by Gatwick at its worst about 8 years ago in peak holiday season (it has since much improved)
Also City Airport, Verona, Incheon (no bars!), the budget terminal at Nice, and Luxor
Just governing isn't about pure administration; it's about setting out a coherent plan for the 4-5 years and sticking to it. Though obviously the administration needs doing too, and doing well.
Bonus points for telling them that if everyone is more productive, that next hire for each department comes further down the line than otherwise.
Flood cooling CNC, with automated tool selection doesn’t get enough love. Everyone talks about 3D printing, but advanced CNC was a whole revolution, by itself.
After a couple of months, I got her another setup. The same. So I could get back to my own desk…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0CMSKjesRs
(I don't generally review for journals I don't know nowadays, but this article is very much in my area, so considering it).
I like Wikipedia, and it'll be a great shame if it's compromised. It is an odd organisation though - I recently rewrote my will, and thought I'd add small sums for some institutions I like - Uni, British Museum, that sort of thing. Anyway I considered wikipedia, but looking at the British bit of it rather put me off - seems odd!
There was an interview on one of the F1 channels with James Vowles, who went from Mercedes to Williams, and said what most shocked him about the move was that his new team were using 10-year-old CNCs in the machine shop, because they’d not had any capital budget for a few years.
The first thing he told the board he needed was some decent new equipment in the factory!
The sole exception is City airport, which has turned into the 19th Circle of Hell
For a backmarker team they have a ridiculously good driver lineup now. Edited extra bit: working on next podcast, all about driver lineups etc.
Step 2: Type in "MDPI" in the search box
Step 3: Wait for the screaming to subside
https://www.thenational.scot/news/24838022.scottish-labour-confirm-will-abstain-budget-vote/
'ANAS Sarwar has confirmed Scottish Labour will abstain on a vote on the Scottish Budget in an interview with the BBC.
It means the SNP should have the numbers to pass the Budget when it goes to a Holyrood vote before the end of February.
Sarwar further said that his party would only vote for the Budget if the Scottish Government “stopped pretending that this Budget lifts the two-child benefit cap”.
“As it currently stands, the two-child benefit cap is not lifted this year.
"If they do, we will support the Budget because we support lifting the two-child benefit cap,” he told Good Morning Scotland.'
And Graun feed:
'Sarwar told BBC Radio Scotland on Tuesday morning Scottish Labour, which has seen its support in the polls plunge since November, would not obstruct the budget and might even support it:
"We, at this current stage, will abstain from this budget, because this budget is going to pass anyway. It has the votes of another political party, at least one of the opposition political parties, so we are not going to vote against this budget."
Labour is in a delicate position: the budget uses several billion pounds of extra spending provided by the UK Labour government, and will reverse the chancellor’s cuts to winter fuel payments for pensioners in Scotland – a policy Sarwar supports'.
Whereas many in the service sector will be highly educated, and highly indebted, but with much lower productivity and pay.
Anyway, what's wrong with my sporran?
That is the main reason why the grooming story is off limits for PB at the moment.
Shortly followed by that fkker's not going away, is he?
Whenever the next leadership election is, he'll be putting himself forward.
We know what type of character he is from the expenses. The trappings of being PM are far too enticing to be risked.
His clear lack of planning for government will lead to a never-ending reboot.
He's here until 2029, Labour won't get rid of him, no matter how bad things get and the scandals that unfold.
On driver lineups, Williams are well up there this year given that we have six rookies on the grid. Ferrari and McLaren with the strongest lineups.
Maybe we should do the same with independent inquiries
*happily I mostly avoid reviews - I've only first-authored one.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jul/15/even-nigel-farage-opposes-the-two-child-cap-labour-must-scrap-it
Mr Sarwar said: '" [...] we support lifting the two-child benefit cap,” he told Good Morning Scotland.'
Just thinking of the Marc Brunel block machinery - in use for 160 years and probably could have kept going if it weren't for the small matter of the RN not needing wooden blocks and sheaves any more ...
Laughably I received an invitation to review a paper on the 23rd December with a 7 day expected response. I did not review said paper... I know that journals like to get reviewers moving and not everyone celebrates Christmas but still...
The frustrating thing about Starmer's failure to get growth moving is that it is missing the opportunity to actually get the UK some benefit from Brexit, rather than being shackled to a hospital bed with a patient not so much suffering from a bad cold as pneumonia...
The decent models will run for decades, so long as you can get spare parts and can find software to write the appropriate file format for any new projects.
Would like to thanks my friends at KLM though. I got 90 minutes of relaxation on their plane, a coffee brought to my seat, and when I got off a £9 voucher which I spent in Costa. All for the princely sum of £0 after the refund 😂
Can argue the toss, but Williams likely have the best lineup outside of the top four.
Jim Pickard @pickardje.bsky.social
·
15m
Mark Carney, the former governor of the Bank of England and the Bank of Canada, is considering running for leadership of Canada’s Liberal party after prime minister Justin Trudeau’s resignation this week
I'll maybe have a look at the review if I have time. The authors look legit and the abstract reads ok, probably just a bit of a nothing paper that they can't get any of the proper journals to publish.
Frequently, sadly, quoted by representatives from the scruffier corners of the pharmaceutical industry.
I will be travelling LON-KIX in a few months but my plans are on hold due to a family illness issue in Australia. At short notice I may have to do LON-KIX then Brisbane / Sydney / Hobart / Perth / London. Is there an open ticket for this sort of thing or a travel specialist in London I could consult?
West Asia / Middle East = Oil, Muslims
South Asia / Subcontinent = Cricket, Hindus
East Asia / Far East = Electronics, Buddhists
North Asia / Siberia = Unpopulated Russia
Those with proper standards, like the Cochrane reviews, are very useful.
Did something vaguely similar - a steel base for a stationary steam engine. Was for an engineering course.
*Edit: not the sort of statistical analysis where that can be dodgy ...
https://angusreid.org/the-freeland-factor-liberal-leadership/
There are differences, the pace of the news cycle and the number of enemies Starmer already has for starters.
But also, at some level, the right are really bad losers. Which is a factor in why they win so often, but also leaves them really discombobulated when defeat happens.
But if you are doing something with real-world implications, you have to check it against the real world, and we are losing sight of that. The map is not the territory and a' that.
Crikey.