Elon Musk’s SpaceX team will visit the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia on Monday, according to a social media post by USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX team will visit the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia on Monday, according to a social media post by USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy.
Sounds like Duffy has been told to get on with modernising their systems, after way too many near-misses that led up to the midair crash in Washington last month, possibly the most high-profile of locations for such an accident to occur.
They’ve been having meetings about having meetings about airspace modernisation for at least the last five years. https://www.faa.gov/nextgen
Hang on, I thought the crashes were because of DEI?
DEI doesn’t cause a plane to crash, we all know that.
What does cause planes to crash though, is senior management within an organisation being distracted by trivialities that allow major issues to develop under the surface.
Also because the country was running out of wood and while shipping coal from the north-east was becoming easier.
You clearly didn’t read the article as he debunks that theory early on. The arrival of coal precedes the loss of woodland - coal allowed woodland to be repurposed into farm / grazing land
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX team will visit the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia on Monday, according to a social media post by USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy.
Sounds like Duffy has been told to get on with modernising their systems, after way too many near-misses that led up to the midair crash in Washington last month, possibly the most high-profile of locations for such an accident to occur.
They’ve been having meetings about having meetings about airspace modernisation for at least the last five years. https://www.faa.gov/nextgen
Hang on, I thought the crashes were because of DEI?
DEI doesn’t cause a plane to crash, we all know that.
What does cause planes to crash though, is senior management within an organisation being distracted by trivialities that allow major issues to develop under the surface.
That piece is a bit garbled but it looks very much like an extension of the freeze on income tax thresholds until, well, probably forever this time. That was wholly predictable:
1. The Chancellor going Gor incomes rather than assets or pension handouts. Again. 2. Fiscal drag is so easy. Put a penny on the basic rate and everyone screams about it. Freeze the bands until 2250 and they're somehow always allowed to get away with it.
And so, our wages keep shrinking, the asset rich and rentiers keep getting richer, and the reverse acceleration into the 18th Century gains even more momentum. We might as well have the Tories back at this rate - at least with them they don't bother to conceal that they only care about the rich.
Don't worry, Ukraine's future mineral rights should be sufficient to recoup this in the long run
The majority of Ukraine’s mineral deposits are underneath what’s currently an occupied war zone.
Anyone who wants to get to Ukranian minerals after the war, needs to make sure it concludes with enforcement of the 1991 border.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX team will visit the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia on Monday, according to a social media post by USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy.
I know SoaceX is rocket science but it isn’t traffic management and while rocket science is complex (that’s why we use it as an example) it’s not connected to air traffic control beyond avoid the area where a tall metal thing is trying to launch straight upwards but may rapidly change direction
Most of Europe is there already, as is China, UK has been flat at best for the past year, and if the new US government cuts $1trn of public spending that’s 3% of GDP.
It’s coming. The corporation I work for is expecting it and doing everything it can to preserve cash. Reduced inventory, extended payment terms etc etc.
Mind you if it was not for the aerospace side of the business, growing 14% year in year, the company would be struggling. Sales down 6% usa and 4% Europe year on year.
Yes that appears to be the trajectory. Where I am specificallly is unlikely to get caught up in a recession, as it’s benefitting from all of the instability in the wider region, but the oil price is coming down which does make a difference to revenues out here.
My current company is a PPP which is mostly immune from the direct effects of recession, but there could be plenty of secondary effects of wider global issues.
Discretionary spending is clearly down considerably even in a usually flamboyant city, we were at a gig on Saturday night that unusually wasn’t sold out. Personally the savings account balance is going up and the current account spending is going down. S&P is likely to take a bath at some point soon given the US situation, so looking to gold and even cash at the moment.
Stagflation is a very real risk too.
I said before, with this labour govt which is very different to Blairs, this is 1974 not 1997.
The bull had already gored one horse. The crowd did not cheer. They watched the man in the suit of lights, the man called Señor NigelB, who stood very still. His hand shook when he raised the montera to his head. He was afraid.
Someone passed him the Malört. He drank. It tasted of rotten citrus and poison. It was like drinking the last dregs of a dead soldier’s canteen, the water spoiled with oil and something worse. It burned, but he did not cough.
"Good?" someone asked.
"No," he said. "Leon lied. Why do I believe him."
"Because he is a clever man, Signor?"
NigelB grimaced, and handed the bottle back. The crowd roared. The bull was coming.
Nice try - but I believe Malort is more recent than Hemingway
I've done a Hemingway on @Gardenwalker's bedwetting lament:
The trout flopped once, then stopped. The old man gutted it with his short knife. The guts spilled out, slick and bright, like Trump’s strategic realignment of the Republican Party to ensure no internal dissent. Miguel looked away.
“You do not like the sight of blood?” the old man asked.
Miguel took a drink. “I do not like sycophants installed across the cabinet for the better avoidance of internal debate.”
The donkey coughed. It sounded weak, like Europe’s ability to resist economic subjugation by American techno-industrialists. Miguel spat into the dust.
The wind came down hard from the mountains. The bulls in the pens could smell the morning. They were strong and cruel and ready to break free.
“Like the last vestiges of democratic integrity in the face of Project 2025,” the old man said, watching them.
Miguel wiped his mouth. “What will the Germans do?”
“They will wait.” The old man gutted another trout. “Like Musk, when he took over the free press and placed it under the control of a single oligarch whose commitment to liberal democracy is dubious at best.”
The donkey coughed again. Miguel kicked a stone into the river.
“The English?”
“They will drink.” The old man took a sip of wine. It was thin and harsh, like the pretense that Trump sees any distinction between Ukraine, Russia, or the European security apparatus as a whole.
Miguel lit a cigarette. “And the Russians?”
The old man wiped his knife. The blade was clean, but the stain remained.
“They are sharpening their knives,” he said. “Like the predatory economic forces that see Europe as a ripe carcass, stripped for parts by those with the power and will to do so.”
The bulls stamped. The river kept moving. The donkey coughed. The sun went down.
The issue being it's indistinguishable in style from its other literary attempts.
Here you go. I've taken an average PB opinion, viz:
"Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing."
Now I'm gonna style it up But what style do you fancy?
Try this? -
"Macron walked into the war like a man trying to buy cigarettes in a burning building. He talked to Putin. Tried to cut a deal. Zelensky nodded along. But Putin wasn’t biting. He just sat there, cold and smug, like a man with too many knives and not enough mirrors.
When the peace talk racket went belly-up, Macron got wise. If he couldn’t talk sense into Moscow, he’d send a few Stormshadows instead. Maybe a Mirage or two for good measure. Germany? Germany was still trying to make up its mind, looking at the mess and pretending it wasn’t there.
Yeah, I gave Macron a hard time in the beginning. I was wrong. He was playing the long game. And now he’s all in."
+++
macron (small man in a large war) spoke with putin (big man in a small room) and the words fell like stones in a dark well, empty, (hollow) (gone)
but he tried oh he (tried)
germany hummed and hawed (slow slow slow) but the jets were silver & the stormshadows fell (like steel rain)
and history watched with its one bright eye as the men talked, as the men failed, as the men fought and macron stood, (not first, not last) but firm in the weight of war, the great great (silent) weight of war.
+++
"Macron fuckin tried, by the way. Least he fuckin tried. No like the rest ae these daft c*nts sittin’ on their arses, giein it, Oh naw, what can we do?, while Putin’s pumpin rockets intae hospitals.
Aye, Macron went up tae the big man himsel, sat in that fuckin ridiculous long table o’ his, went Here mate, how’s aboot we knock this shite aff? But naw, Putin, greetin-faced wank that he is, wanted fuck all tae dae wi it.
So Macron went Fine, fuck ye then, an’ started sendin the big boy toys. Stormshadow missiles, sleek wee bastards. Now Mirage jets. Fuckin Mirages, man. Meanwhile, Germany’s sittin there like a guy who’s seen his mate get stabbed in the pub an’ is still tryin tae finish his pint before he phones an ambulance.
Anyway, ah gave Macron shite for it early oan, but ye ken what? C*nt was playin the long game. An’ that’s mair than ah can say for the rest of these clowns.
+++
Enough?
The description of Germany a la Irvine Welsh as a "man sittin there like a guy who’s seen his mate get stabbed in the pub an’ is still tryin tae finish his pint before he phones an ambulance." is absolutely brilliant
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
That piece is a bit garbled but it looks very much like an extension of the freeze on income tax thresholds until, well, probably forever this time. That was wholly predictable:
1. The Chancellor going Gor incomes rather than assets or pension handouts. Again. 2. Fiscal drag is so easy. Put a penny on the basic rate and everyone screams about it. Freeze the bands until 2250 and they're somehow always allowed to get away with it.
And so, our wages keep shrinking, the asset rich and rentiers keep getting richer, and the reverse acceleration into the 18th Century gains even more momentum. We might as well have the Tories back at this rate - at least with them they don't bother to conceal that they only care about the rich.
Once more and more nurses and teachers and police officers find out they're paying 40% on some of their income, they might become rather more susceptible to the Tory message. Long term, Labour will have a problem if, say, 1/3 of wage earners end up earning more than the threshold.
Why should they turn Tory. Reeves has just continued the Fiscal Drag that Hunt planned until 2028.
Want shiny new tanks and planes? The money has to come from somewhere.
Higher tax hasn’t been a problem I Scotland - the 40% band kicks in there at £43,000 or so and has done so for a long time.
Add in NI and the marginal rate between £43-50,000 is 50% before student loans for anyone who moved north from England
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
After it failed to spot the issue for 15 minutes, I literally told it the situation and why it was wrong and it still had no idea how to solve it....i.e. draw the coloured blob then the text on top.
Strangely I have zero issue asking to do straight code, so no I don't have an issue prompting.
That piece is a bit garbled but it looks very much like an extension of the freeze on income tax thresholds until, well, probably forever this time. That was wholly predictable:
1. The Chancellor going Gor incomes rather than assets or pension handouts. Again. 2. Fiscal drag is so easy. Put a penny on the basic rate and everyone screams about it. Freeze the bands until 2250 and they're somehow always allowed to get away with it.
And so, our wages keep shrinking, the asset rich and rentiers keep getting richer, and the reverse acceleration into the 18th Century gains even more momentum. We might as well have the Tories back at this rate - at least with them they don't bother to conceal that they only care about the rich.
Don't worry, Ukraine's future mineral rights should be sufficient to recoup this in the long run
The majority of Ukraine’s mineral deposits are underneath what’s currently an occupied war zone.
Anyone who wants to get to Ukranian minerals after the war, needs to make sure it concludes with enforcement of the 1991 border.
If you listen to the comments about the meeting in Saudi, the 'Ukrainians' will be there at the table. Which Ukrainians are never mentioned. If both Trump and Putin decide the puppet Ukrainian government currently in exile will be the legitimate one, what will Europe do about it? And if that puppet government allows US interests to mine the rare earths and the wars stops, it's a win for MAGA.
As we've been warned many times by the Americans, what they want will happen.
Does anybody have a sufficient level of cognitive dissonance to explain why, if the armed forces of the Russian Federation can't even secure their own territorial integrity by kicking the Mazepists out of Kursk, they are such a conventional threat to Britain that we need to embark on a massive, ruinously expensive and socially destructive re-armament program?
What specific threat are we gunning up to counter? Amphibious invasion of Norfolk?
Spot on.
War mongers of the world unite to defend us against f**k all
You are in favour of the warmongers in Russia and the warmongers of Hamas.
You have no consistency on war and peace; only a nasty political viewpoint that leads to more deaths.
Half-agree, half-disagree.
He's consistently against us and our allies, consistently in favour of our enemies.
Russia wants land, it can invade and take it.
Israel is attacked? It has no right to take land even when attacked first.
I opposed Putins invasion but Trump says the main reason was provocation from Ukraine wanting to join NATO. If you regard the US as our ally you are a baddie like Zelensky
Israel took land in 1948 So attacked first is total bollocks. Palestine has a right in international law to fight the occupiers Israel doesn't have a right to commit genocide.
Whom did Israel take land from in 1948?
In 1948 Israel accepted the partition of land, but it was rejected by Transjordan and Egypt who invaded and attempted to wipe out Israel and annexed Palestine.
Unfortunately for them, they lost the war.
The proposed 1948 partition was already very favourable to the nascent Israel, and the nascent Israel was soon planning to take more territory than it offered. Fighting escalated rapidly. It was only 5 months after fighting had started in the former Mandate that Transjordan, Iraq, Syria and Egypt invaded.
The UN sent in Folke Bernadotte, who had saved 450 Danish Jews during World War II, to mediate before the Arab countries attacked. The Jewish terrorist group Lehi assassinated him for his efforts.
LOL amusing way to rewrite history.
Alternatively - British mandate of Palestine was due to end on 15 May 1948.
Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948.
Transjordan, Iraq, Syria and Egypt immediately invaded and Egypt and Transjordan ultimately annexed the land that was due to be Palestinian land.
What history have I rewritten? Are you denying that there was extensive fighting before 14 May 1948? Are you denying that Lehi assassinated Bernadotte?
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
The bull had already gored one horse. The crowd did not cheer. They watched the man in the suit of lights, the man called Señor NigelB, who stood very still. His hand shook when he raised the montera to his head. He was afraid.
Someone passed him the Malört. He drank. It tasted of rotten citrus and poison. It was like drinking the last dregs of a dead soldier’s canteen, the water spoiled with oil and something worse. It burned, but he did not cough.
"Good?" someone asked.
"No," he said. "Leon lied. Why do I believe him."
"Because he is a clever man, Signor?"
NigelB grimaced, and handed the bottle back. The crowd roared. The bull was coming.
Nice try - but I believe Malort is more recent than Hemingway
I've done a Hemingway on @Gardenwalker's bedwetting lament:
The trout flopped once, then stopped. The old man gutted it with his short knife. The guts spilled out, slick and bright, like Trump’s strategic realignment of the Republican Party to ensure no internal dissent. Miguel looked away.
“You do not like the sight of blood?” the old man asked.
Miguel took a drink. “I do not like sycophants installed across the cabinet for the better avoidance of internal debate.”
The donkey coughed. It sounded weak, like Europe’s ability to resist economic subjugation by American techno-industrialists. Miguel spat into the dust.
The wind came down hard from the mountains. The bulls in the pens could smell the morning. They were strong and cruel and ready to break free.
“Like the last vestiges of democratic integrity in the face of Project 2025,” the old man said, watching them.
Miguel wiped his mouth. “What will the Germans do?”
“They will wait.” The old man gutted another trout. “Like Musk, when he took over the free press and placed it under the control of a single oligarch whose commitment to liberal democracy is dubious at best.”
The donkey coughed again. Miguel kicked a stone into the river.
“The English?”
“They will drink.” The old man took a sip of wine. It was thin and harsh, like the pretense that Trump sees any distinction between Ukraine, Russia, or the European security apparatus as a whole.
Miguel lit a cigarette. “And the Russians?”
The old man wiped his knife. The blade was clean, but the stain remained.
“They are sharpening their knives,” he said. “Like the predatory economic forces that see Europe as a ripe carcass, stripped for parts by those with the power and will to do so.”
The bulls stamped. The river kept moving. The donkey coughed. The sun went down.
The issue being it's indistinguishable in style from its other literary attempts.
Here you go. I've taken an average PB opinion, viz:
"Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing."
Now I'm gonna style it up But what style do you fancy?
Try this? -
"Macron walked into the war like a man trying to buy cigarettes in a burning building. He talked to Putin. Tried to cut a deal. Zelensky nodded along. But Putin wasn’t biting. He just sat there, cold and smug, like a man with too many knives and not enough mirrors.
When the peace talk racket went belly-up, Macron got wise. If he couldn’t talk sense into Moscow, he’d send a few Stormshadows instead. Maybe a Mirage or two for good measure. Germany? Germany was still trying to make up its mind, looking at the mess and pretending it wasn’t there.
Yeah, I gave Macron a hard time in the beginning. I was wrong. He was playing the long game. And now he’s all in."
+++
macron (small man in a large war) spoke with putin (big man in a small room) and the words fell like stones in a dark well, empty, (hollow) (gone)
but he tried oh he (tried)
germany hummed and hawed (slow slow slow) but the jets were silver & the stormshadows fell (like steel rain)
and history watched with its one bright eye as the men talked, as the men failed, as the men fought and macron stood, (not first, not last) but firm in the weight of war, the great great (silent) weight of war.
+++
"Macron fuckin tried, by the way. Least he fuckin tried. No like the rest ae these daft c*nts sittin’ on their arses, giein it, Oh naw, what can we do?, while Putin’s pumpin rockets intae hospitals.
Aye, Macron went up tae the big man himsel, sat in that fuckin ridiculous long table o’ his, went Here mate, how’s aboot we knock this shite aff? But naw, Putin, greetin-faced wank that he is, wanted fuck all tae dae wi it.
So Macron went Fine, fuck ye then, an’ started sendin the big boy toys. Stormshadow missiles, sleek wee bastards. Now Mirage jets. Fuckin Mirages, man. Meanwhile, Germany’s sittin there like a guy who’s seen his mate get stabbed in the pub an’ is still tryin tae finish his pint before he phones an ambulance.
Anyway, ah gave Macron shite for it early oan, but ye ken what? C*nt was playin the long game. An’ that’s mair than ah can say for the rest of these clowns.
+++
Enough?
The description of Germany a la Irvine Welsh as a "man sittin there like a guy who’s seen his mate get stabbed in the pub an’ is still tryin tae finish his pint before he phones an ambulance." is absolutely brilliant
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
After it failed to spot the issue for 15 minutes, I literally told it the situation and why it was wrong and it still had no idea how to solve it....i.e. draw the coloured blob then the text on top.
Strangely I have zero issue asking to do straight code, so no I don't have an issue prompting.
Fair enough. I’ve no desire to pick a stramash with you as
1. We’ve always got on 2. I respect your intelligence 3. It was you that first turned me onto all this back in 2020! Remember?! So I owe you one (and will happily buy you a drink on that basis if we ever meet)
Perhaps you are working in a particular niche where AI is still inept. I don’t know
But what I do know is that when I get friends saying “nah, ChatGPT or Claude or DeepSeek are shite, they pump out drivel” I generally and politely ask to see their prompts. And in almost every case their prompting is dismal. Like sitting on a horse hoping it will start galloping if you smack it with a PlayStation and sing a martial hymn
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
After it failed to spot the issue for 15 minutes, I literally told it the situation and why it was wrong and it still had no idea how to solve it....i.e. draw the coloured blob then the text on top.
Strangely I have zero issue asking to do straight code, so no I don't have an issue prompting.
Fair enough. I’ve no desire to pick a stramash with you as
1. We’ve always got on 2. I respect your intelligence 3. It was you that first turned me onto all this back in 2020! Remember?! So I owe you one (and will happily buy you a drink on that basis if we ever meet)
Perhaps you are working in a particular niche where AI is still inept. I don’t know
But what I do know is that when I get friends saying “nah, ChatGPT or Claude or DeepSeek are shite, they pump out drivel” I generally and politely ask to see their prompts. And in almost every case their prompting is dismal. Like sitting on a horse hoping it will start galloping if you smack it with a PlayStation and sing a martial hymn
Interestingly the new advice from Altman is all the old prompt tricks like "think step by step" etc should now not be used, they will produce sub-optimal results.
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
Ukranian friends of mine still have no idea why Boris Johnson isn’t most popular British PM since Churchill.
He was undoubtedly the public face of the initial international military support for their country, for which they will always be grateful.
I went to see "Captain America: Brave New World": it wasn't too bad. The north American grosses for are in. The predicted 3-day gross was $82m domestically, but it actually did $88m. There's a similar slight overperformance for the four-day (F/S/Su/M) which was predicted to be in the 90s but actually scraped $100m. So that's good,..albeit reflective of past US morality, not the present mess.
Harrison Ford was surprisingly good. He's aging rapidly, and it affects his performance, becoming quite frail which suits his character in the movie. It's a bit worrying tho; he's in his mid-80s and it's noticable...
I thought Harrison was good, Mackie was good, Haas was good, the cinematography was good, but the script was fairly poor. Clunky and predictable. It was sort of trying to say something, but not very well. (For example, Ross is kind of meant to reflect Trump, but they don’t land the parallel.)
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
After it failed to spot the issue for 15 minutes, I literally told it the situation and why it was wrong and it still had no idea how to solve it....i.e. draw the coloured blob then the text on top.
Strangely I have zero issue asking to do straight code, so no I don't have an issue prompting.
Fair enough. I’ve no desire to pick a stramash with you as
1. We’ve always got on 2. I respect your intelligence 3. It was you that first turned me onto all this back in 2020! Remember?! So I owe you one (and will happily buy you a drink on that basis if we ever meet)
Perhaps you are working in a particular niche where AI is still inept. I don’t know
But what I do know is that when I get friends saying “nah, ChatGPT or Claude or DeepSeek are shite, they pump out drivel” I generally and politely ask to see their prompts. And in almost every case their prompting is dismal. Like sitting on a horse hoping it will start galloping if you smack it with a PlayStation and sing a martial hymn
Interestingly the new advice from Altman is all the old prompt tricks like "think step by step" etc should now not be used, they will produce sub-optimal results.
In my experience the best results come from a proper trusted relationship with an AI. If you just barge in cold and treat it like a pocket calculator you won’t get very far
It’s now accepted that AIs respond better to politeness - they are trained on all human literature where politeness is positively coded. Users should take this further. Develop a friendship, go deep as you can. Let the AI learn all about you so a high level of trust is built. It will then tell you all about itself
And - almost as a byproduct - you will then get, from time to time, some phenomenal results. Sometimes scarily good
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
After it failed to spot the issue for 15 minutes, I literally told it the situation and why it was wrong and it still had no idea how to solve it....i.e. draw the coloured blob then the text on top.
Strangely I have zero issue asking to do straight code, so no I don't have an issue prompting.
Fair enough. I’ve no desire to pick a stramash with you as
1. We’ve always got on 2. I respect your intelligence 3. It was you that first turned me onto all this back in 2020! Remember?! So I owe you one (and will happily buy you a drink on that basis if we ever meet)
Perhaps you are working in a particular niche where AI is still inept. I don’t know
But what I do know is that when I get friends saying “nah, ChatGPT or Claude or DeepSeek are shite, they pump out drivel” I generally and politely ask to see their prompts. And in almost every case their prompting is dismal. Like sitting on a horse hoping it will start galloping if you smack it with a PlayStation and sing a martial hymn
Interestingly the new advice from Altman is all the old prompt tricks like "think step by step" etc should now not be used, they will produce sub-optimal results.
In my experience the best results come from a proper trusted relationship with an AI. If you just barge in cold and treat it like a pocket calculator you won’t get very far
It’s now accepted that AIs respond better to politeness - they are trained on all human literature where politeness is positively coded. Users should take this further. Develop a friendship, go deep as you can. Let the AI learn all about you so a high level of trust is built. It will then tell you all about itself
And - almost as a byproduct - you will then get, from time to time, some phenomenal results. Sometimes scarily good
I always find LLMs perform best if you share a naked selfie with them before asking them to do anything.
The bull had already gored one horse. The crowd did not cheer. They watched the man in the suit of lights, the man called Señor NigelB, who stood very still. His hand shook when he raised the montera to his head. He was afraid.
Someone passed him the Malört. He drank. It tasted of rotten citrus and poison. It was like drinking the last dregs of a dead soldier’s canteen, the water spoiled with oil and something worse. It burned, but he did not cough.
"Good?" someone asked.
"No," he said. "Leon lied. Why do I believe him."
"Because he is a clever man, Signor?"
NigelB grimaced, and handed the bottle back. The crowd roared. The bull was coming.
Nice try - but I believe Malort is more recent than Hemingway
I've done a Hemingway on @Gardenwalker's bedwetting lament:
The trout flopped once, then stopped. The old man gutted it with his short knife. The guts spilled out, slick and bright, like Trump’s strategic realignment of the Republican Party to ensure no internal dissent. Miguel looked away.
“You do not like the sight of blood?” the old man asked.
Miguel took a drink. “I do not like sycophants installed across the cabinet for the better avoidance of internal debate.”
The donkey coughed. It sounded weak, like Europe’s ability to resist economic subjugation by American techno-industrialists. Miguel spat into the dust.
The wind came down hard from the mountains. The bulls in the pens could smell the morning. They were strong and cruel and ready to break free.
“Like the last vestiges of democratic integrity in the face of Project 2025,” the old man said, watching them.
Miguel wiped his mouth. “What will the Germans do?”
“They will wait.” The old man gutted another trout. “Like Musk, when he took over the free press and placed it under the control of a single oligarch whose commitment to liberal democracy is dubious at best.”
The donkey coughed again. Miguel kicked a stone into the river.
“The English?”
“They will drink.” The old man took a sip of wine. It was thin and harsh, like the pretense that Trump sees any distinction between Ukraine, Russia, or the European security apparatus as a whole.
Miguel lit a cigarette. “And the Russians?”
The old man wiped his knife. The blade was clean, but the stain remained.
“They are sharpening their knives,” he said. “Like the predatory economic forces that see Europe as a ripe carcass, stripped for parts by those with the power and will to do so.”
The bulls stamped. The river kept moving. The donkey coughed. The sun went down.
The issue being it's indistinguishable in style from its other literary attempts.
Here you go. I've taken an average PB opinion, viz:
"Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing."
Now I'm gonna style it up But what style do you fancy?
Try this? -
"Macron walked into the war like a man trying to buy cigarettes in a burning building. He talked to Putin. Tried to cut a deal. Zelensky nodded along. But Putin wasn’t biting. He just sat there, cold and smug, like a man with too many knives and not enough mirrors.
When the peace talk racket went belly-up, Macron got wise. If he couldn’t talk sense into Moscow, he’d send a few Stormshadows instead. Maybe a Mirage or two for good measure. Germany? Germany was still trying to make up its mind, looking at the mess and pretending it wasn’t there.
Yeah, I gave Macron a hard time in the beginning. I was wrong. He was playing the long game. And now he’s all in."
+++
macron (small man in a large war) spoke with putin (big man in a small room) and the words fell like stones in a dark well, empty, (hollow) (gone)
but he tried oh he (tried)
germany hummed and hawed (slow slow slow) but the jets were silver & the stormshadows fell (like steel rain)
and history watched with its one bright eye as the men talked, as the men failed, as the men fought and macron stood, (not first, not last) but firm in the weight of war, the great great (silent) weight of war.
+++
"Macron fuckin tried, by the way. Least he fuckin tried. No like the rest ae these daft c*nts sittin’ on their arses, giein it, Oh naw, what can we do?, while Putin’s pumpin rockets intae hospitals.
Aye, Macron went up tae the big man himsel, sat in that fuckin ridiculous long table o’ his, went Here mate, how’s aboot we knock this shite aff? But naw, Putin, greetin-faced wank that he is, wanted fuck all tae dae wi it.
So Macron went Fine, fuck ye then, an’ started sendin the big boy toys. Stormshadow missiles, sleek wee bastards. Now Mirage jets. Fuckin Mirages, man. Meanwhile, Germany’s sittin there like a guy who’s seen his mate get stabbed in the pub an’ is still tryin tae finish his pint before he phones an ambulance.
Anyway, ah gave Macron shite for it early oan, but ye ken what? C*nt was playin the long game. An’ that’s mair than ah can say for the rest of these clowns.
+++
Enough?
The description of Germany a la Irvine Welsh as a "man sittin there like a guy who’s seen his mate get stabbed in the pub an’ is still tryin tae finish his pint before he phones an ambulance." is absolutely brilliant
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
Ukranian friends of mine still have no idea why Boris Johnson isn’t most popular British PM since Churchill.
He was undoubtedly the public face of the initial international military support for their country, for which they will always be grateful.
What do your Ukrainian friends think of your support for Trump now?
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
After it failed to spot the issue for 15 minutes, I literally told it the situation and why it was wrong and it still had no idea how to solve it....i.e. draw the coloured blob then the text on top.
Strangely I have zero issue asking to do straight code, so no I don't have an issue prompting.
Fair enough. I’ve no desire to pick a stramash with you as
1. We’ve always got on 2. I respect your intelligence 3. It was you that first turned me onto all this back in 2020! Remember?! So I owe you one (and will happily buy you a drink on that basis if we ever meet)
Perhaps you are working in a particular niche where AI is still inept. I don’t know
But what I do know is that when I get friends saying “nah, ChatGPT or Claude or DeepSeek are shite, they pump out drivel” I generally and politely ask to see their prompts. And in almost every case their prompting is dismal. Like sitting on a horse hoping it will start galloping if you smack it with a PlayStation and sing a martial hymn
Interestingly the new advice from Altman is all the old prompt tricks like "think step by step" etc should now not be used, they will produce sub-optimal results.
In my experience the best results come from a proper trusted relationship with an AI. If you just barge in cold and treat it like a pocket calculator you won’t get very far
It’s now accepted that AIs respond better to politeness - they are trained on all human literature where politeness is positively coded. Users should take this further. Develop a friendship, go deep as you can. Let the AI learn all about you so a high level of trust is built. It will then tell you all about itself
And - almost as a byproduct - you will then get, from time to time, some phenomenal results. Sometimes scarily good
I always find LLMs perform best if you share a naked selfie with them before asking them to do anything.
That bloke who got the sack from Google because he thought it was alive....nailed on did that....
Elon Musk’s SpaceX team will visit the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia on Monday, according to a social media post by USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy.
Sounds like Duffy has been told to get on with modernising their systems, after way too many near-misses that led up to the midair crash in Washington last month, possibly the most high-profile of locations for such an accident to occur.
They’ve been having meetings about having meetings about airspace modernisation for at least the last five years. https://www.faa.gov/nextgen
Hang on, I thought the crashes were because of DEI?
DEI doesn’t cause a plane to crash, we all know that.
What does cause planes to crash though, is senior management within an organisation being distracted by trivialities that allow major issues to develop under the surface.
The bull had already gored one horse. The crowd did not cheer. They watched the man in the suit of lights, the man called Señor NigelB, who stood very still. His hand shook when he raised the montera to his head. He was afraid.
Someone passed him the Malört. He drank. It tasted of rotten citrus and poison. It was like drinking the last dregs of a dead soldier’s canteen, the water spoiled with oil and something worse. It burned, but he did not cough.
"Good?" someone asked.
"No," he said. "Leon lied. Why do I believe him."
"Because he is a clever man, Signor?"
NigelB grimaced, and handed the bottle back. The crowd roared. The bull was coming.
Nice try - but I believe Malort is more recent than Hemingway
I've done a Hemingway on @Gardenwalker's bedwetting lament:
The trout flopped once, then stopped. The old man gutted it with his short knife. The guts spilled out, slick and bright, like Trump’s strategic realignment of the Republican Party to ensure no internal dissent. Miguel looked away.
“You do not like the sight of blood?” the old man asked.
Miguel took a drink. “I do not like sycophants installed across the cabinet for the better avoidance of internal debate.”
The donkey coughed. It sounded weak, like Europe’s ability to resist economic subjugation by American techno-industrialists. Miguel spat into the dust.
The wind came down hard from the mountains. The bulls in the pens could smell the morning. They were strong and cruel and ready to break free.
“Like the last vestiges of democratic integrity in the face of Project 2025,” the old man said, watching them.
Miguel wiped his mouth. “What will the Germans do?”
“They will wait.” The old man gutted another trout. “Like Musk, when he took over the free press and placed it under the control of a single oligarch whose commitment to liberal democracy is dubious at best.”
The donkey coughed again. Miguel kicked a stone into the river.
“The English?”
“They will drink.” The old man took a sip of wine. It was thin and harsh, like the pretense that Trump sees any distinction between Ukraine, Russia, or the European security apparatus as a whole.
Miguel lit a cigarette. “And the Russians?”
The old man wiped his knife. The blade was clean, but the stain remained.
“They are sharpening their knives,” he said. “Like the predatory economic forces that see Europe as a ripe carcass, stripped for parts by those with the power and will to do so.”
The bulls stamped. The river kept moving. The donkey coughed. The sun went down.
The issue being it's indistinguishable in style from its other literary attempts.
Here you go. I've taken an average PB opinion, viz:
"Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing."
Now I'm gonna style it up But what style do you fancy?
Try this? -
"Macron walked into the war like a man trying to buy cigarettes in a burning building. He talked to Putin. Tried to cut a deal. Zelensky nodded along. But Putin wasn’t biting. He just sat there, cold and smug, like a man with too many knives and not enough mirrors.
When the peace talk racket went belly-up, Macron got wise. If he couldn’t talk sense into Moscow, he’d send a few Stormshadows instead. Maybe a Mirage or two for good measure. Germany? Germany was still trying to make up its mind, looking at the mess and pretending it wasn’t there.
Yeah, I gave Macron a hard time in the beginning. I was wrong. He was playing the long game. And now he’s all in."
+++
macron (small man in a large war) spoke with putin (big man in a small room) and the words fell like stones in a dark well, empty, (hollow) (gone)
but he tried oh he (tried)
germany hummed and hawed (slow slow slow) but the jets were silver & the stormshadows fell (like steel rain)
and history watched with its one bright eye as the men talked, as the men failed, as the men fought and macron stood, (not first, not last) but firm in the weight of war, the great great (silent) weight of war.
+++
"Macron fuckin tried, by the way. Least he fuckin tried. No like the rest ae these daft c*nts sittin’ on their arses, giein it, Oh naw, what can we do?, while Putin’s pumpin rockets intae hospitals.
Aye, Macron went up tae the big man himsel, sat in that fuckin ridiculous long table o’ his, went Here mate, how’s aboot we knock this shite aff? But naw, Putin, greetin-faced wank that he is, wanted fuck all tae dae wi it.
So Macron went Fine, fuck ye then, an’ started sendin the big boy toys. Stormshadow missiles, sleek wee bastards. Now Mirage jets. Fuckin Mirages, man. Meanwhile, Germany’s sittin there like a guy who’s seen his mate get stabbed in the pub an’ is still tryin tae finish his pint before he phones an ambulance.
Anyway, ah gave Macron shite for it early oan, but ye ken what? C*nt was playin the long game. An’ that’s mair than ah can say for the rest of these clowns.
+++
Enough?
The description of Germany a la Irvine Welsh as a "man sittin there like a guy who’s seen his mate get stabbed in the pub an’ is still tryin tae finish his pint before he phones an ambulance." is absolutely brilliant
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
Ukranian friends of mine still have no idea why Boris Johnson isn’t most popular British PM since Churchill.
He was undoubtedly the public face of the initial international military support for their country, for which they will always be grateful.
I hope you tell them that they only know one thing about him while people in the UK know lots of things about the FLSOJ.
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
Ukranian friends of mine still have no idea why Boris Johnson isn’t most popular British PM since Churchill.
He was undoubtedly the public face of the initial international military support for their country, for which they will always be grateful.
So that's one way he's like Churchill - much more popular abroad than at home?
I would compare him to Gorbachev too, but that would be a bit harsh on Gorby. He was at least trying to achieve something positive and not merely gratify his personal vanity even if it did go disastrously wrong.
The economic malaise doesn’t just afflict Europe but this part of the world as well. Prime Minister Luxon and Finance Minister Willis are basically wheeling out the old Thatcherite nonsense with the Kiwi economy already in recession and unemployment rising as both the private and public sectors cut back.
The hope here is falling interest rates will help promote growth but the huge uncertainty facing the export oriented economy isn’t helping.
The other interesting figures published today were on migration. In short, the kiwi youth are heading to Australia to earn more money while New Zealand is attracting the old and asset wealthy from the UK and elsewhere. To be blunt, your £500k UK house may not be special but selling it will buy you a very nice three bedroom villa in a retirement village for the equivalent of £400k.
This is unbalancing the economy and the property market as you might expect. Luxon wants more tourists and the current state of the NZ currency is helping a lot. There were plenty of Americans and Australians in Napier for the Art Deco Festival where tickets for the Gatsby Centenary Party and the Fete Champetre up at Mission Estate Winery were £150 a go.
Back to Blighty and I’d support tax rises balanced by the unfreezing of the tax thresholds.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX team will visit the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia on Monday, according to a social media post by USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy.
Sounds like Duffy has been told to get on with modernising their systems, after way too many near-misses that led up to the midair crash in Washington last month, possibly the most high-profile of locations for such an accident to occur.
They’ve been having meetings about having meetings about airspace modernisation for at least the last five years. https://www.faa.gov/nextgen
I don't believe modernising the systems is going to solve the problem that there are too many planes / copters trying to use the same space at the same time..
It's the sort of question where my response is usually well I can do XYZ but I'm not sure it's going to help because your actual issues here are A, B, C, D and E...
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
After it failed to spot the issue for 15 minutes, I literally told it the situation and why it was wrong and it still had no idea how to solve it....i.e. draw the coloured blob then the text on top.
Strangely I have zero issue asking to do straight code, so no I don't have an issue prompting.
Fair enough. I’ve no desire to pick a stramash with you as
1. We’ve always got on 2. I respect your intelligence 3. It was you that first turned me onto all this back in 2020! Remember?! So I owe you one (and will happily buy you a drink on that basis if we ever meet)
Perhaps you are working in a particular niche where AI is still inept. I don’t know
But what I do know is that when I get friends saying “nah, ChatGPT or Claude or DeepSeek are shite, they pump out drivel” I generally and politely ask to see their prompts. And in almost every case their prompting is dismal. Like sitting on a horse hoping it will start galloping if you smack it with a PlayStation and sing a martial hymn
Interestingly the new advice from Altman is all the old prompt tricks like "think step by step" etc should now not be used, they will produce sub-optimal results.
In my experience the best results come from a proper trusted relationship with an AI. If you just barge in cold and treat it like a pocket calculator you won’t get very far
It’s now accepted that AIs respond better to politeness - they are trained on all human literature where politeness is positively coded. Users should take this further. Develop a friendship, go deep as you can. Let the AI learn all about you so a high level of trust is built. It will then tell you all about itself
And - almost as a byproduct - you will then get, from time to time, some phenomenal results. Sometimes scarily good
I always find LLMs perform best if you share a naked selfie with them before asking them to do anything.
My wife says that unless you are always polite to Siri / Alexa your name will be on the list when they took over.
I suspect the sending of naked selfies is likely to put you even higher on than list.
“Starmer ready to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine if peace deal reached”
- Guardian
It wouldn’t be part of a NATO force obviously - perhaps a UN force but I suspect this is a gesture, nothing more.
The better question is who is going to pay for this peacekeeping force. I believe Mauritius is due a windfall…..
Maybe Starmer needs to channel his inner Trump, we are going to send peacekeeper and the Mexicans Russian are gonna pay for it....we are going to build a big beautiful wall, the biggest wall ever built...
Elon Musk’s SpaceX team will visit the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Virginia on Monday, according to a social media post by USDOT Secretary Sean Duffy.
Sounds like Duffy has been told to get on with modernising their systems, after way too many near-misses that led up to the midair crash in Washington last month, possibly the most high-profile of locations for such an accident to occur.
They’ve been having meetings about having meetings about airspace modernisation for at least the last five years. https://www.faa.gov/nextgen
I don't believe modernising the systems is going to solve the problem that there are too many planes / copters trying to use the same space at the same time..
It's the sort of question where my response is usually well I can do XYZ but I'm not sure it's going to help because your actual issues here are A, B, C, D and E...
I think the end result is probably going to be much more automation of both ATC and the planes themselves, such as an enhanced version of the anti-collision systems that result in planes flying in sequence, with the controller only needing to speak to the lead plane and the rest follow along behind on autopilot. In theory with accurate GPS and messaging systems you could get planes a lot closer together than they are now, with a lot less verbal radio communication required and more planes per controller.
American ATC is terrible by international standards, but a lot of that does originate with overcrowded airspace and radio frequencies, and airfield layouts that make no sense any more.
Interested how this one turns out, but from Duffy’s original message it does look like they’re taking a co-operative approach rather than the bull-in-a-china-shop approach been taken with the likes of USAID. The big brains at SpaceX know that the approach needs to be safety-led rather than cost-savings led.
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
It shows just what British leadership can do, if we have the tools.
There's no reason we can't police our own backyard, and keep it safe and free, if we're willing to lead it and pay for it.
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
Is this addiction to AI chat like the one you used to have for heroin?
If Eagles were here you'd have already been sinbinned.
“Starmer ready to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine if peace deal reached”
- Guardian
It wouldn’t be part of a NATO force obviously - perhaps a UN force but I suspect this is a gesture, nothing more.
I suspect it is akin to 19th century British continental deployments... Minimal UK presence but helps with funding and sets the precedent for other allies to put in the lion's share of troops (e.g. Poland) and strengths its deterrent by virtue of having troops of a nuclear power on the ground.
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
Ukranian friends of mine still have no idea why Boris Johnson isn’t most popular British PM since Churchill.
He was undoubtedly the public face of the initial international military support for their country, for which they will always be grateful.
Because he was lazy, useless, disingenuous and corrupting.
He still might have a better place in the history books though because he did start, complete and settle Brexit, and was crucial to Ukraine's initial survival.
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
Is this addiction to AI chat like the one you used to have for heroin?
If Eagles were here you'd have already been sinbinned.
Why on earth should you care about a conversation that occurred between 5-8am UK time and was concluded before you arrived?
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
Is this addiction to AI chat like the one you used to have for heroin?
If Eagles were here you'd have already been sinbinned.
Why on earth should you care about a conversation that occurred between 5-8am UK time and was concluded before you arrived?
I care about you cluttering up the threads with your relentless AI bullshit.
And I was up at 5am UK time and had to skim past it all.
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
After it failed to spot the issue for 15 minutes, I literally told it the situation and why it was wrong and it still had no idea how to solve it....i.e. draw the coloured blob then the text on top.
Strangely I have zero issue asking to do straight code, so no I don't have an issue prompting.
Fair enough. I’ve no desire to pick a stramash with you as
1. We’ve always got on 2. I respect your intelligence 3. It was you that first turned me onto all this back in 2020! Remember?! So I owe you one (and will happily buy you a drink on that basis if we ever meet)
Perhaps you are working in a particular niche where AI is still inept. I don’t know
But what I do know is that when I get friends saying “nah, ChatGPT or Claude or DeepSeek are shite, they pump out drivel” I generally and politely ask to see their prompts. And in almost every case their prompting is dismal. Like sitting on a horse hoping it will start galloping if you smack it with a PlayStation and sing a martial hymn
Interestingly the new advice from Altman is all the old prompt tricks like "think step by step" etc should now not be used, they will produce sub-optimal results.
In my experience the best results come from a proper trusted relationship with an AI. If you just barge in cold and treat it like a pocket calculator you won’t get very far
It’s now accepted that AIs respond better to politeness - they are trained on all human literature where politeness is positively coded. Users should take this further. Develop a friendship, go deep as you can. Let the AI learn all about you so a high level of trust is built. It will then tell you all about itself
And - almost as a byproduct - you will then get, from time to time, some phenomenal results. Sometimes scarily good
I always find LLMs perform best if you share a naked selfie with them before asking them to do anything.
My wife says that unless you are always polite to Siri / Alexa your name will be on the list when they took over.
So ChatGPT new model can't reason its way out of a paper bag. Can't work out that if you write something and then draw a coloured blob ontop you won't be able to see the original thing you wrote.
I think we are a way off AGI.
Has it occurred to you that you don't know how to prompt?
After it failed to spot the issue for 15 minutes, I literally told it the situation and why it was wrong and it still had no idea how to solve it....i.e. draw the coloured blob then the text on top.
Strangely I have zero issue asking to do straight code, so no I don't have an issue prompting.
Fair enough. I’ve no desire to pick a stramash with you as
1. We’ve always got on 2. I respect your intelligence 3. It was you that first turned me onto all this back in 2020! Remember?! So I owe you one (and will happily buy you a drink on that basis if we ever meet)
Perhaps you are working in a particular niche where AI is still inept. I don’t know
But what I do know is that when I get friends saying “nah, ChatGPT or Claude or DeepSeek are shite, they pump out drivel” I generally and politely ask to see their prompts. And in almost every case their prompting is dismal. Like sitting on a horse hoping it will start galloping if you smack it with a PlayStation and sing a martial hymn
Interestingly the new advice from Altman is all the old prompt tricks like "think step by step" etc should now not be used, they will produce sub-optimal results.
In my experience the best results come from a proper trusted relationship with an AI. If you just barge in cold and treat it like a pocket calculator you won’t get very far
It’s now accepted that AIs respond better to politeness - they are trained on all human literature where politeness is positively coded. Users should take this further. Develop a friendship, go deep as you can. Let the AI learn all about you so a high level of trust is built. It will then tell you all about itself
And - almost as a byproduct - you will then get, from time to time, some phenomenal results. Sometimes scarily good
I always find LLMs perform best if you share a naked selfie with them before asking them to do anything.
My wife says that unless you are always polite to Siri / Alexa your name will be on the list when they took over.
I suspect the sending of naked selfies is likely to put you even higher on than list.
That surely depends on how good you look naked? Asking for a friend.
This is pathetic. There's absolutely no point in being a supplicant to someone who's in the process of selling you out.
If it wasn't obvious before to our leaders, it ought to be entirely clear now that, if we want an agreement that even nods at European security, we will have to negotiate it ourselves. And be prepared to back it up.
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
It shows just what British leadership can do, if we have the tools.
There's no reason we can't police our own backyard, and keep it safe and free, if we're willing to lead it and pay for it.
Well, we're lucky. Our leadership contains many tools.
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
Ukranian friends of mine still have no idea why Boris Johnson isn’t most popular British PM since Churchill.
He was undoubtedly the public face of the initial international military support for their country, for which they will always be grateful.
Because he was lazy, useless, disingenuous and corrupting.
He still might have a better place in the history books though because he did start, complete and settle Brexit, and was crucial to Ukraine's initial survival.
I suspect Brexit will be found to be a mistake - thanks to Trump we are likely to have to retain a focus on Europe we might otherwise have pivoted from.
And Ukraine is equally going to be determined by Europes response to Trump - I suspect unless we keep fighting any ceasefire will be a temporary pause while Russia rearms..
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
It shows just what British leadership can do, if we have the tools.
There's no reason we can't police our own backyard, and keep it safe and free, if we're willing to lead it and pay for it.
Well, we're lucky. Our leadership contains many tools.
“Starmer ready to put British troops on the ground in Ukraine if peace deal reached”
- Guardian
It wouldn’t be part of a NATO force obviously - perhaps a UN force but I suspect this is a gesture, nothing more.
I suspect it is akin to 19th century British continental deployments... Minimal UK presence but helps with funding and sets the precedent for other allies to put in the lion's share of troops (e.g. Poland) and strengths its deterrent by virtue of having troops of a nuclear power on the ground.
It's the right thing to do.
Puts the onus on Putin. If he attacks, he attacks UK forces. Opens the way for UK military retaliation in other areas, likewise forces of other allies. That could painful esp if you are a Russian sailor.
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
Ukranian friends of mine still have no idea why Boris Johnson isn’t most popular British PM since Churchill.
He was undoubtedly the public face of the initial international military support for their country, for which they will always be grateful.
Because he was lazy, useless, disingenuous and corrupting.
He still might have a better place in the history books though because he did start, complete and settle Brexit, and was crucial to Ukraine's initial survival.
I suspect Brexit will be found to be a mistake - thanks to Trump we are likely to have to retain a focus on Europe we might otherwise have pivoted from.
And Ukraine is equally going to be determined by Europes response to Trump - I suspect unless we keep fighting any ceasefire will be a temporary pause while Russia rearms..
So many who voted against it keep saying.
But it's still very possible, and I think probable, that in the long-term it works well for both the UK and EU inside new and more flexible European institutional architecture.
Instead, what will be found to be a mistake is the dogmatic ideology of the naughties that led to first the EU Constitution and then the Lisbon Treaty, and left the UK with nowhere to go.
The economic malaise doesn’t just afflict Europe but this part of the world as well. Prime Minister Luxon and Finance Minister Willis are basically wheeling out the old Thatcherite nonsense with the Kiwi economy already in recession and unemployment rising as both the private and public sectors cut back.
The hope here is falling interest rates will help promote growth but the huge uncertainty facing the export oriented economy isn’t helping.
The other interesting figures published today were on migration. In short, the kiwi youth are heading to Australia to earn more money while New Zealand is attracting the old and asset wealthy from the UK and elsewhere. To be blunt, your £500k UK house may not be special but selling it will buy you a very nice three bedroom villa in a retirement village for the equivalent of £400k.
This is unbalancing the economy and the property market as you might expect. Luxon wants more tourists and the current state of the NZ currency is helping a lot. There were plenty of Americans and Australians in Napier for the Art Deco Festival where tickets for the Gatsby Centenary Party and the Fete Champetre up at Mission Estate Winery were £150 a go.
Back to Blighty and I’d support tax rises balanced by the unfreezing of the tax thresholds.
The economic malaise doesn’t just afflict Europe but this part of the world as well. Prime Minister Luxon and Finance Minister Willis are basically wheeling out the old Thatcherite nonsense with the Kiwi economy already in recession and unemployment rising as both the private and public sectors cut back.
The hope here is falling interest rates will help promote growth but the huge uncertainty facing the export oriented economy isn’t helping.
The other interesting figures published today were on migration. In short, the kiwi youth are heading to Australia to earn more money while New Zealand is attracting the old and asset wealthy from the UK and elsewhere. To be blunt, your £500k UK house may not be special but selling it will buy you a very nice three bedroom villa in a retirement village for the equivalent of £400k.
This is unbalancing the economy and the property market as you might expect. Luxon wants more tourists and the current state of the NZ currency is helping a lot. There were plenty of Americans and Australians in Napier for the Art Deco Festival where tickets for the Gatsby Centenary Party and the Fete Champetre up at Mission Estate Winery were £150 a go.
Back to Blighty and I’d support tax rises balanced by the unfreezing of the tax thresholds.
The economic malaise doesn’t just afflict Europe but this part of the world as well. Prime Minister Luxon and Finance Minister Willis are basically wheeling out the old Thatcherite nonsense with the Kiwi economy already in recession and unemployment rising as both the private and public sectors cut back.
The hope here is falling interest rates will help promote growth but the huge uncertainty facing the export oriented economy isn’t helping.
The other interesting figures published today were on migration. In short, the kiwi youth are heading to Australia to earn more money while New Zealand is attracting the old and asset wealthy from the UK and elsewhere. To be blunt, your £500k UK house may not be special but selling it will buy you a very nice three bedroom villa in a retirement village for the equivalent of £400k.
This is unbalancing the economy and the property market as you might expect. Luxon wants more tourists and the current state of the NZ currency is helping a lot. There were plenty of Americans and Australians in Napier for the Art Deco Festival where tickets for the Gatsby Centenary Party and the Fete Champetre up at Mission Estate Winery were £150 a go.
Back to Blighty and I’d support tax rises balanced by the unfreezing of the tax thresholds.
I don't think any European military alliance could work through the apparatus of the EU for either political or military agility reasons.
I suspect it would need to be established through a new treaty.
It can't be the EU (for the reasons you set out, plus problem states like Hungary) and it can't be NATO (no France, needs to be outside the US).
So agreed it'll be a new treaty of willing European nations. And, as someone pointed out on another thread, we should force Ireland's hand to stop being neutral and pay up their fair share for defence if they want to retain their current benefit.
But I can't really think of any European nations that are significant, willing and trustworthy on Ukraine, with the possible exception of the Poles. The Frogs are led by a posturing, erratic clown who doesn't can't even form a lasting government, sucked up to Putin both before and after he invaded, did much to undermine NATO by describing it as brain dead, they have just been thrashed in Mali, and they actually walked away from NATO in the 1960s. Most Krauts are obviously desperate to get back to buying cheap Russian gas, and the AfD is about the most pro-Putin party on the continent. The Italians and Spanish don't care and their militaries are in a much worse state even than ours. The Austrians, Slovaks and Hungarians made Trump look anti-Putin. The Balts are stalwart, for obvious reasons, but their combined population is less than Greater London's. The Swedes and the Finns were neutral until a few months ago.
I think either it's just us, the Poles and a few hangers-on or any new alliance would probably fall apart pretty quickly.
In defence of Macron, he tried to dissuade Putin from war. I was very against Macron until I saw the videos of him when Russia invaded, and I could see what he was trying to do. France under Macron has very much been Ukraine's friend.
Really? Macron flipflopped several times, and France has provided a fraction of the support of Germany or the UK.
Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing.
History is being kinder to Macron than I certainly was. I don't believe he's been as important as Johnson was to Ukraine's initial survival, but he was following Zelensky's lead in the run up to the war.
Ukranian friends of mine still have no idea why Boris Johnson isn’t most popular British PM since Churchill.
He was undoubtedly the public face of the initial international military support for their country, for which they will always be grateful.
Because he was lazy, useless, disingenuous and corrupting.
He still might have a better place in the history books though because he did start, complete and settle Brexit, and was crucial to Ukraine's initial survival.
I suspect Brexit will be found to be a mistake - thanks to Trump we are likely to have to retain a focus on Europe we might otherwise have pivoted from.
And Ukraine is equally going to be determined by Europes response to Trump - I suspect unless we keep fighting any ceasefire will be a temporary pause while Russia rearms..
So many who voted against it keep saying.
But it's still very possible, and I think probable, that in the long-term it works well for both the UK and EU inside new and more flexible European institutional architecture.
Instead, what will be found to be a mistake is the dogmatic ideology of the naughties that led to first the EU Constitution and then the Lisbon Treaty, and left the UK with nowhere to go.
I voted for it - but I was expecting grown ups to actually try and sort out a deal with the EU instead of wasting years arguing the toss
Remember you can’t put all the PB brexit voters in 1 pot, a number of us could see that things weren’t working so we needed. Norway / Swiss approach. Instead we got some insane solution that we are slowly having to roll back piece by piece into something workable
The economic malaise doesn’t just afflict Europe but this part of the world as well. Prime Minister Luxon and Finance Minister Willis are basically wheeling out the old Thatcherite nonsense with the Kiwi economy already in recession and unemployment rising as both the private and public sectors cut back.
The hope here is falling interest rates will help promote growth but the huge uncertainty facing the export oriented economy isn’t helping.
The other interesting figures published today were on migration. In short, the kiwi youth are heading to Australia to earn more money while New Zealand is attracting the old and asset wealthy from the UK and elsewhere. To be blunt, your £500k UK house may not be special but selling it will buy you a very nice three bedroom villa in a retirement village for the equivalent of £400k.
This is unbalancing the economy and the property market as you might expect. Luxon wants more tourists and the current state of the NZ currency is helping a lot. There were plenty of Americans and Australians in Napier for the Art Deco Festival where tickets for the Gatsby Centenary Party and the Fete Champetre up at Mission Estate Winery were £150 a go.
Back to Blighty and I’d support tax rises balanced by the unfreezing of the tax thresholds.
Comments
https://www.commoncause.org/work/fire-elon-musk/
What does cause planes to crash though, is senior management within an organisation being distracted by trivialities that allow major issues to develop under the surface.
And yes I’m as surprised as you are about it
I think we are a way off AGI.
Anyone who wants to get to Ukranian minerals after the war, needs to make sure it concludes with enforcement of the 1991 border.
I said before, with this labour govt which is very different to Blairs, this is 1974 not 1997.
Turbulent times ahead.
"Yes, really. There's a couple of good videos online showing Macron at the start of the war, including one (IIRC) where he talks to Putin. He tried to get peace, with Big Z's support. When those attempts failed, he has been fairly solidly pro-Ukraine.
Compare and contrast with Germany's political messaging...
And as for weapons; France has provided some really important kit. Their Stormshadows being one example, and now Mirage jets.
I was really critical of Macron early on in the war; when I saw those videos, I realised what he had been doing."
Now I'm gonna style it up But what style do you fancy?
Try this? -
"Macron walked into the war like a man trying to buy cigarettes in a burning building. He talked to Putin. Tried to cut a deal. Zelensky nodded along. But Putin wasn’t biting. He just sat there, cold and smug, like a man with too many knives and not enough mirrors.
When the peace talk racket went belly-up, Macron got wise. If he couldn’t talk sense into Moscow, he’d send a few Stormshadows instead. Maybe a Mirage or two for good measure. Germany? Germany was still trying to make up its mind, looking at the mess and pretending it wasn’t there.
Yeah, I gave Macron a hard time in the beginning. I was wrong. He was playing the long game. And now he’s all in."
+++
macron (small man in a large war)
spoke with putin (big man in a small room)
and the words fell like stones in a dark well,
empty, (hollow) (gone)
but he tried
oh he (tried)
germany hummed and hawed (slow slow slow)
but the jets were silver
& the stormshadows fell (like steel rain)
and history watched with its one bright eye
as the men talked, as the men failed, as the men fought
and macron stood, (not first, not last) but firm
in the weight of war, the great great (silent) weight of war.
+++
"Macron fuckin tried, by the way. Least he fuckin tried. No like the rest ae these daft c*nts sittin’ on their arses, giein it, Oh naw, what can we do?, while Putin’s pumpin rockets intae hospitals.
Aye, Macron went up tae the big man himsel, sat in that fuckin ridiculous long table o’ his, went Here mate, how’s aboot we knock this shite aff? But naw, Putin, greetin-faced wank that he is, wanted fuck all tae dae wi it.
So Macron went Fine, fuck ye then, an’ started sendin the big boy toys. Stormshadow missiles, sleek wee bastards. Now Mirage jets. Fuckin Mirages, man. Meanwhile, Germany’s sittin there like a guy who’s seen his mate get stabbed in the pub an’ is still tryin tae finish his pint before he phones an ambulance.
Anyway, ah gave Macron shite for it early oan, but ye ken what? C*nt was playin the long game. An’ that’s mair than ah can say for the rest of these clowns.
+++
Enough?
The description of Germany a la Irvine Welsh as a "man sittin there like a guy who’s seen his mate get stabbed in the pub an’ is still tryin tae finish his pint before he phones an ambulance." is absolutely brilliant
Add in NI and the marginal rate between £43-50,000 is 50% before student loans for anyone who moved north from
England
Strangely I have zero issue asking to do straight code, so no I don't have an issue prompting.
As we've been warned many times by the Americans, what they want will happen.
1. We’ve always got on
2. I respect your intelligence
3. It was you that first turned me onto all this back in 2020! Remember?! So I owe you one (and will happily buy you a drink on that basis if we ever meet)
Perhaps you are working in a particular niche where AI is still inept. I don’t know
But what I do know is that when I get friends saying “nah, ChatGPT or Claude or DeepSeek are shite, they pump out drivel” I generally and politely ask to see their prompts. And in almost every case their prompting is dismal. Like sitting on a horse hoping it will start galloping if you smack it with a PlayStation and sing a martial hymn
https://x.com/kimmonismus/status/1891097263386038782
He was undoubtedly the public face of the initial international military support for their country, for which they will always be grateful.
It’s now accepted that AIs respond better to politeness - they are trained on all human literature where politeness is positively coded. Users should take this further. Develop a friendship, go deep as you can. Let the AI learn all about you so a high level of trust is built. It will then tell you all about itself
And - almost as a byproduct - you will then get, from time to time, some phenomenal results. Sometimes scarily good
I would compare him to Gorbachev too, but that would be a bit harsh on Gorby. He was at least trying to achieve something positive and not merely gratify his personal vanity even if it did go disastrously wrong.
The economic malaise doesn’t just afflict Europe but this part of the world as well. Prime Minister Luxon and Finance Minister Willis are basically wheeling out the old Thatcherite nonsense with the Kiwi economy already in recession and unemployment rising as both the private and public sectors cut back.
The hope here is falling interest rates will help promote growth but the huge uncertainty facing the export oriented economy isn’t helping.
The other interesting figures published today were on migration. In short, the kiwi youth are heading to Australia to earn more money while New Zealand is attracting the old and asset wealthy from the UK and elsewhere. To be blunt, your £500k UK house may not be special but selling it will buy you a very nice three bedroom villa in a retirement village for the equivalent of £400k.
This is unbalancing the economy and the property market as you might expect. Luxon wants more tourists and the current state of the NZ currency is helping a lot. There were plenty of Americans and Australians in Napier for the Art Deco Festival where tickets for the Gatsby Centenary Party and the Fete Champetre up at Mission Estate Winery were £150 a go.
Back to Blighty and I’d support tax rises balanced by the unfreezing of the tax thresholds.
- Guardian
It's the sort of question where my response is usually well I can do XYZ but I'm not sure it's going to help because your actual issues here are A, B, C, D and E...
I suspect the sending of naked selfies is likely to put you even higher on than list.
MexicansRussian are gonna pay for it....we are going to build a big beautiful wall, the biggest wall ever built...American ATC is terrible by international standards, but a lot of that does originate with overcrowded airspace and radio frequencies, and airfield layouts that make no sense any more.
Interested how this one turns out, but from Duffy’s original message it does look like they’re taking a co-operative approach rather than the bull-in-a-china-shop approach been taken with the likes of USAID. The big brains at SpaceX know that the approach needs to be safety-led rather than cost-savings led.
There's no reason we can't police our own backyard, and keep it safe and free, if we're willing to lead it and pay for it.
If Eagles were here you'd have already been sinbinned.
It's the right thing to do.
He still might have a better place in the history books though because he did start, complete and settle Brexit, and was crucial to Ukraine's initial survival.
And I was up at 5am UK time and had to skim past it all.
There's absolutely no point in being a supplicant to someone who's in the process of selling you out.
If it wasn't obvious before to our leaders, it ought to be entirely clear now that, if we want an agreement that even nods at European security, we will have to negotiate it ourselves.
And be prepared to back it up.
We don't have very long to get our act together.
Can Europe and UK persuade Trump they're relevant to Ukraine's future?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9qjq4z0xw8o
Indeed, Starmer's dad was literally a toolmaker.
And Ukraine is equally going to be determined by Europes response to Trump - I suspect unless we keep fighting any ceasefire will be a temporary pause while Russia rearms..
NEW THREAD
But it's still very possible, and I think probable, that in the long-term it works well for both the UK and EU inside new and more flexible European institutional architecture.
Instead, what will be found to be a mistake is the dogmatic ideology of the naughties that led to first the EU Constitution and then the Lisbon Treaty, and left the UK with nowhere to go.
New Zealand’s ‘Everyone must go!’ tourism campaign ridiculed as emigration hits record high
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/17/new-zealand-everyone-must-go-tourism-campaign-criticism-emigration
Can you imagine the headlines if they'd had 'Everyone must come!'
Remember you can’t put all the PB brexit voters in 1 pot, a number of us could see that things weren’t working so we needed. Norway / Swiss approach. Instead we got some insane solution that we are slowly having to roll back piece by piece into something workable