No, I am really encouraged to hear that @isam has awakened to the issues of islamophobia in British society, and its presence in all parts of society. He will become a progressive yet 😇
I dislike hearing my name and the word "progressive" from a Doctor thankyou
Don't worry, I know your opinions on Islamophobia are purely trolling.
😄
No opinion, just reporting something relevant to politics/betting that seems to be ignored by everyone else on here 🙈
So, Is that good or bad for Labour? Presumably Islamophobes are quite heartened to hear that they have a home in Labour.
I find it hard to believe that the team currently in charge of Labour are islamophobic to be honest, and I doubt Corbyn’s mob were either. The results of the poll surprise me, the PB whitewash of it too
Then again, Corbyn etc refused to admit there was a problem with anti-semitism, and people are falling over themselves to apologise for it now.
Tim hasn’t tweeted about this, and he is normally all over islamophobia
All polling shows that Islamophobia is fairly common in Britain so not surprising to find it in Labour. Indeed it shows how representative of mainstream opinion Labour is.
Orthodox Islam often seems to clash with progressive opinion on women's rights, LGBT issues, free speech etc, and in those clashes, I have no doubt where I stand.
People say the same about orthodox Jews
Some Christian sects too, but all of these religions also have liberal wings with more progressive theologies. No religion is a monolith, all being a dialogue between modernists and tradition.
No, I am really encouraged to hear that @isam has awakened to the issues of islamophobia in British society, and its presence in all parts of society. He will become a progressive yet 😇
I dislike hearing my name and the word "progressive" from a Doctor thankyou
Don't worry, I know your opinions on Islamophobia are purely trolling.
😄
No opinion, just reporting something relevant to politics/betting that seems to be ignored by everyone else on here 🙈
So, Is that good or bad for Labour? Presumably Islamophobes are quite heartened to hear that they have a home in Labour.
I find it hard to believe that the team currently in charge of Labour are islamophobic to be honest, and I doubt Corbyn’s mob were either. The results of the poll surprise me, the PB whitewash of it too
Then again, Corbyn etc refused to admit there was a problem with anti-semitism, and people are falling over themselves to apologise for it now.
Tim hasn’t tweeted about this, and he is normally all over islamophobia
All polling shows that Islamophobia is fairly common in Britain so not surprising to find it in Labour. Indeed it shows how representative of mainstream opinion Labour is.
Orthodox Islam often seems to clash with progressive opinion on women's rights, LGBT issues, free speech etc, and in those clashes, I have no doubt where I stand.
People say the same about orthodox Jews
Some Christian sects too, but all of these religions also have liberal wings with more progressive theologies. No religion is a monolith, all being a dialogue between modernists and tradition.
Is modernists vs tradition the right terminology? As sometimes it seems religions can become more rigid in a way which is not really traditional.
Oh, I agree. Indeed I don't use the term Fundamentalist concerning religions, as for example, I think Christian Fundamentalists seem often to forget the fundamental of loving your neighbour and welcoming the stranger.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
2030 is an age away in AI development terms. I’d say better odds than not that drivers won’t be needed for cars by then. And if that happens, the economic forcing factors will mean it becomes quite rare for individuals to purchase, service and charge cars in large parts of the country.
As for the choice of drivetrain, it blows my mind with incentives and depreciation curves as they are, that anyone apart from apartment dwelllers or enthusiasts are still buying petrol or diesel new. Money down the toilet even today. No doubt the refuseniks will come crying for a taxpayer funded scrappage scheme when they realise what a poor decision they made buying petrol/diesel anytime after about 2024.
The government giving clear signals on the direction of the market (dressed up as a future ban) is great news because it lessens the scale of dissent when we get there.
Self driving cars are like speech recognition. It's easy to get to 99.9% (we got there with Dragon Dictate and IBM Naturally Speaking in 1999), but getting the last 0.1% that takes it from convenience feature on the highway, to actually be able to take full control of the car is not easy.
I'm in Phoenix next week and will try and travel in the Google self driving taxis while I'm there. It will be very interesting to experience.
And of course unlike speech recognition mis-translating say one word in a 1000, a self driving car making a mistake once in a 1000 miles = massive increase in road traffic accidents.
Oh, it's even worse than that. Imagine that a self driving cars realises that an accident is inevitable. It has to make a choice between hitting a baby in a pram or swerving and taking out an old person.
What should it do?
The old trolley problem :-)
My point was even without the ethics issues, we aren't close on the fully autonomous driving cars. Part of the problem is their reliance on deep neural networks, which are great at the low hanging fruit, but increasingly we are finding that they don't actually learn what people think they do and getting from great to perfect is basically impossible with the current paradigm even with the attitude of "just throw more labelled data at it".
Increasingly leading lights in the AI / ML world are saying that deep neural nets aren't the solution, they aren't the future, and that there needs to be a lot of work on thinking about different ideas. Meanwhile, Waymo have gone full "throw every bit at data at the neural net will do the trick" approach.
Deep artificial neural nets can't explain or justify their actions. Deep human neural nets are experts at explaining and justifying their actions. The artificials will catch up.
Bernard Williams gave a better example of the trolley problem.
Jim is a reporter on a botanical expedition in South America. He wanders into the central square of a remote village in which twenty people are restrained against a wall and are being guarded by armed men in uniforms. Pedro, the officer in charge, informs Jim that the captives are a randomly selected group of inhabitants that are about to be killed in order to put an end to recent acts of protest against the government. Pedro would like to honor Jim’s presence by offering him the opportunity to kill one of the innocent villagers himself. If Jim accepts the offer, Pedro will release the surviving nineteen villagers. If Jim refuses, Pedro will kill the twenty prisoners. Violent resistance is not an option. Williams asks, “What should he do?”
I think that the answer is whatever decision that Jim feels he can best live with and justify to himself. How will he feel about his decision? Personally I would shoot the one person rather than hear twenty shots ring out as I walk away leaving 20 bereaved families. I could justify that more easily to myself and others.
AI deep neural nets will eventually need to justify their actions both to themselves and to others as they climb the evolutionary tree.
Ah the old if I dont do it someone else will and it might be worse syndrome, that ignores that its just the first step....this time they get you to shoot one....next they already have you on the path and toruring these 2 is better than all 20 before long you are the same as them
So, what you're saying is, you should think of this as a job interview with the possibility of future long term employment.
Have they? I don't know how they report, but in the last couple of weeks they seem to regularly go from 300 deaths per day then 1 day around 900, then down again for a few days. Cases trending down perhaps?
I think the fact that the number in both hospital and ICU has declined for the first time in three months is a positive. Far too early to say they've turned a corner, but definitely better than the alternative.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
No, I am really encouraged to hear that @isam has awakened to the issues of islamophobia in British society, and its presence in all parts of society. He will become a progressive yet 😇
I dislike hearing my name and the word "progressive" from a Doctor thankyou
Don't worry, I know your opinions on Islamophobia are purely trolling.
😄
No opinion, just reporting something relevant to politics/betting that seems to be ignored by everyone else on here 🙈
So, Is that good or bad for Labour? Presumably Islamophobes are quite heartened to hear that they have a home in Labour.
I find it hard to believe that the team currently in charge of Labour are islamophobic to be honest, and I doubt Corbyn’s mob were either. The results of the poll surprise me, the PB whitewash of it too
Then again, Corbyn etc refused to admit there was a problem with anti-semitism, and people are falling over themselves to apologise for it now.
Tim hasn’t tweeted about this, and he is normally all over islamophobia
All polling shows that Islamophobia is fairly common in Britain so not surprising to find it in Labour. Indeed it shows how representative of mainstream opinion Labour is.
Orthodox Islam often seems to clash with progressive opinion on women's rights, LGBT issues, free speech etc, and in those clashes, I have no doubt where I stand.
People say the same about orthodox Jews
Some Christian sects too, but all of these religions also have liberal wings with more progressive theologies. No religion is a monolith, all being a dialogue between modernists and tradition.
It's easier with Atheists. When someone holds bigoted views we just call them a bigot, rather than a traditionalist.
That's the traditional atheist view. The reform atheist sect rejects this labelling.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
The amount of energy windmills take out of the weather system is miniscule.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
Precisely I have never heard anyone talk about if it will change weather patterns. Just oh free energy....well experience tells me nothing is quite free
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
The amount of energy windmills take out of the weather system is miniscule.
There was one study saying you'd need to cover 10% of the Earth's landmass with wind farms in order to have a significant change in climate.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
When on a German autobahn in my holiday hire car I would typically set cruise control to 150km/h.
Presumably high speeds in e-cars means that the range becomes far less than what's advertised?
What would the range be of a normal e-car today, if the full charge was used at about 80-85mph on a clear motorway ?
Aerodynamic drag is proportional to speed squared, so going 76mph instead of 62mph (123km/100km) results in 50% more aero drag and hence fuel consumption.
Electric cars generally hate motorways.
I don't think it is that much of a difference, which probably means that there are other sources of energy loss that don't go up so much with speed. And on the motorway there is less speeding up and slowing down, so less energy lost in brakes and acceleration, etc. I would think the difference for me is more like 25%
Those numbers are bunkum though, as the most inefficient part of the process (the generating of the electricity) is done outside of the car!
You could make the numbers fit your preferred narrative, purely by deciding how much of the power supply chain you want to include in them.
Modern CCGTs have efficiencies in the 60s. Now, of course, you have to factor in transmission losses, battery losses, and electrical motor efficiency. BUT, assuming the power comes from a modern natural gas plant, it's probably quite a bit more efficient through the cycle than petroleum. (And worth remembering that there's a whole bunch of inefficiencies hidden in the oil supply chain too.)
Indeed. Plenty of variables on both vehicle types, so making an ‘equivalent’ statistic necessarily requires being selective as to what you include in the figures.
I’d also love to know how the UK gov expect to replace about £30bn in annual revenue from fuel sales and road tax on conventional cars, once they get banned.
Don't forget that that money will be spent by consumers in different ways, so they'll still get their hands on it one way or another,
I’ll put mine into my pension. Or perhaps the offshore savings account.
No, I am really encouraged to hear that @isam has awakened to the issues of islamophobia in British society, and its presence in all parts of society. He will become a progressive yet 😇
I dislike hearing my name and the word "progressive" from a Doctor thankyou
Don't worry, I know your opinions on Islamophobia are purely trolling.
😄
No opinion, just reporting something relevant to politics/betting that seems to be ignored by everyone else on here 🙈
So, Is that good or bad for Labour? Presumably Islamophobes are quite heartened to hear that they have a home in Labour.
I find it hard to believe that the team currently in charge of Labour are islamophobic to be honest, and I doubt Corbyn’s mob were either. The results of the poll surprise me, the PB whitewash of it too
Then again, Corbyn etc refused to admit there was a problem with anti-semitism, and people are falling over themselves to apologise for it now.
Tim hasn’t tweeted about this, and he is normally all over islamophobia
All polling shows that Islamophobia is fairly common in Britain so not surprising to find it in Labour. Indeed it shows how representative of mainstream opinion Labour is.
Orthodox Islam often seems to clash with progressive opinion on women's rights, LGBT issues, free speech etc, and in those clashes, I have no doubt where I stand.
People say the same about orthodox Jews
Some Christian sects too, but all of these religions also have liberal wings with more progressive theologies. No religion is a monolith, all being a dialogue between modernists and tradition.
It's easier with Atheists. When someone holds bigoted views we just call them a bigot, rather than a traditionalist.
That's the traditional atheist view. The reform atheist sect rejects this labelling.
In my experience atheists label people with bigotted views followers of alternative science rather than bigots. They can't bear to think anyone with the same belief system as them is irrational
When on a German autobahn in my holiday hire car I would typically set cruise control to 150km/h.
Presumably high speeds in e-cars means that the range becomes far less than what's advertised?
What would the range be of a normal e-car today, if the full charge was used at about 80-85mph on a clear motorway ?
Aerodynamic drag is proportional to speed squared, so going 76mph instead of 62mph (123km/100km) results in 50% more aero drag and hence fuel consumption.
Electric cars generally hate motorways.
I don't think it is that much of a difference, which probably means that there are other sources of energy loss that don't go up so much with speed. And on the motorway there is less speeding up and slowing down, so less energy lost in brakes and acceleration, etc. I would think the difference for me is more like 25%
It’s worse than that - the force goes as the square of velocity, but the power required to overcome said force goes as the cube of velocity. But driving at a constant speed is much more efficient than constantly stop-starting for junctions and traffic lights for an internal combustion engine driven vehicle so the the final difference is relatively small. For an electric vehicle with regenerative braking, stop-start driving isn’t a problem (pace battery charging losses), so the power requirements are dominated by aerodynamic drag & hence velocity.
So in a typical mid range car what constant speed do we think is likely to show the maximum fuel economy?
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
I imagine most out-at-sea winds expends most of its energy on making waves bigger, so that is what you are stealing from.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
Potentially, though if we get it right, we only need to take a fairly small percentage of the Sun's energy input for stuff we want to do.
Rough ballpark figures: The Sun's radiation onto the Earth is about 90 000 TW Of that, about 1 000 TW ends up as wind (most of the energy gets re-radiated into space) The total energy consumption of humanity is about 20 TW.
The energy is there; the big problem is that a lot of it is pretty diffuse, and modern technology depends on energy being concentrated.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
The amount of energy windmills take out of the weather system is miniscule.
There was one study saying you'd need to cover 10% of the Earth's landmass with wind farms in order to have a significant change in climate.
To be frank that doesnt give me any faith.
Do I think the climate is changing? Yes Do I think humans are at least partially responsible? Yes
Do I think that anything we do now can stop that? Not sure but doubt it Do I think we should put money into adapting to a changing climate? yes
Do I think climate scientists know enough to predict anything? Absolutely no. Its misleading to call it science it is more at the stage of alchemy in the 17th century
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
The amount of energy windmills take out of the weather system is miniscule.
There was one study saying you'd need to cover 10% of the Earth's landmass with wind farms in order to have a significant change in climate.
To be frank that doesnt give me any faith.
Do I think the climate is changing? Yes Do I think humans are at least partially responsible? Yes
Do I think that anything we do now can stop that? Not sure but doubt it Do I think we should put money into adapting to a changing climate? yes
Do I think climate scientists know enough to predict anything? Absolutely no. Its misleading to call it science it is more at the stage of alchemy in the 17th century
I think you do them quite a bit of disservice with that last statement. Calling the whole field no more than alchemy is a bit much.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
I imagine most out-at-sea winds expends most of its energy on making waves bigger, so that is what you are stealing from.
You make that so humdrum but you forget waves have an effect on the environment, they drive long shore drift, erosion. They also provide eco systems by stirring up the bottom as they race to shore feeding fish and other lifeforms. Waves are not just pretty and for use by surfers
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
Precisely I have never heard anyone talk about if it will change weather patterns. Just oh free energy....well experience tells me nothing is quite free
There’s quite a lot of research on it. They make the immediate area less cold at night.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
Precisely I have never heard anyone talk about if it will change weather patterns. Just oh free energy....well experience tells me nothing is quite free
There’s quite a lot of research on it. They make the immediate area less cold at night.
hmm let me guess they make the immediate area less cold which then gets measured and used as proof of warming because that local weather station is providing higher tempratures than expected
When on a German autobahn in my holiday hire car I would typically set cruise control to 150km/h.
Presumably high speeds in e-cars means that the range becomes far less than what's advertised?
What would the range be of a normal e-car today, if the full charge was used at about 80-85mph on a clear motorway ?
Aerodynamic drag is proportional to speed squared, so going 76mph instead of 62mph (123km/100km) results in 50% more aero drag, which is a huge amount of total drag and hence fuel consumption.
Electric cars generally hate motorways. So do petrol cars of course, but they can be recharged to full in 3 minutes.
And that is why if we want a quick win on road transport CO2 emissions the speed limit should be reduced to 60 mph
That's quite possibly the worst suggestion I've ever heard.
Why?
Because 70 mph is too slow as is. Especially when you have some idiot dawdling in the middle lane at 65 mph and you have an idiot in an Audi behind you.
When on a German autobahn in my holiday hire car I would typically set cruise control to 150km/h.
Presumably high speeds in e-cars means that the range becomes far less than what's advertised?
What would the range be of a normal e-car today, if the full charge was used at about 80-85mph on a clear motorway ?
Aerodynamic drag is proportional to speed squared, so going 76mph instead of 62mph (123km/100km) results in 50% more aero drag and hence fuel consumption.
Electric cars generally hate motorways.
I don't think it is that much of a difference, which probably means that there are other sources of energy loss that don't go up so much with speed. And on the motorway there is less speeding up and slowing down, so less energy lost in brakes and acceleration, etc. I would think the difference for me is more like 25%
Those numbers are bunkum though, as the most inefficient part of the process (the generating of the electricity) is done outside of the car!
You could make the numbers fit your preferred narrative, purely by deciding how much of the power supply chain you want to include in them.
Modern CCGTs have efficiencies in the 60s. Now, of course, you have to factor in transmission losses, battery losses, and electrical motor efficiency. BUT, assuming the power comes from a modern natural gas plant, it's probably quite a bit more efficient through the cycle than petroleum. (And worth remembering that there's a whole bunch of inefficiencies hidden in the oil supply chain too.)
Indeed. Plenty of variables on both vehicle types, so making an ‘equivalent’ statistic necessarily requires being selective as to what you include in the figures.
I’d also love to know how the UK gov expect to replace about £30bn in annual revenue from fuel sales and road tax on conventional cars, once they get banned.
Don't forget that that money will be spent by consumers in different ways, so they'll still get their hands on it one way or another,
I’ll put mine into my pension. Or perhaps the offshore savings account.
But to what end? What's the point of having money if you never spend it?
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
Precisely I have never heard anyone talk about if it will change weather patterns. Just oh free energy....well experience tells me nothing is quite free
There’s quite a lot of research on it. They make the immediate area less cold at night.
hmm let me guess they make the immediate area less cold which then gets measured and used as proof of warming because that local weather station is providing higher tempratures than expected
I'm not sure many official weather stations are in the middle of wind farms.
Have we covered this today? Seems like all we need pre- Brexit is the import flow through Felixstowe melting down and messing up the container traffic from afar which in some cases might substitute stuff caught in EU lorry queues. 36% of the container sector came this route in 2019.
And the punchline of how they tried to sort this out is a corker, if you don't know it.
When on a German autobahn in my holiday hire car I would typically set cruise control to 150km/h.
Presumably high speeds in e-cars means that the range becomes far less than what's advertised?
What would the range be of a normal e-car today, if the full charge was used at about 80-85mph on a clear motorway ?
Aerodynamic drag is proportional to speed squared, so going 76mph instead of 62mph (123km/100km) results in 50% more aero drag, which is a huge amount of total drag and hence fuel consumption.
Electric cars generally hate motorways. So do petrol cars of course, but they can be recharged to full in 3 minutes.
And that is why if we want a quick win on road transport CO2 emissions the speed limit should be reduced to 60 mph
That's quite possibly the worst suggestion I've ever heard.
Why?
Because 70 mph is too slow as is. Especially when you have some idiot dawdling in the middle lane at 65 mph and you have an idiot in an Audi behind you.
Easy solution: let the Audi past to bully the dawdler out of the way. But keep your distance ...
Have we covered this today? Seems like all we need pre- Brexit is the import flow through Felixstowe melting down and messing up the container traffic from afar which in some cases might substitute stuff caught in EU lorry queues. 36% of the container sector came this route in 2019.
And the punchline of how they tried to sort this out is a corker, if you don't know it.
"Two months ago, the former Transport Secretary Chris Grayling was hired to advise the port's parent company Hutchison Ports Europe, which is based in London."
Have we covered this today? Seems like all we need pre- Brexit is the import flow through Felixstowe melting down and messing up the container traffic from afar which in some cases might substitute stuff caught in EU lorry queues. 36% of the container sector came this route in 2019.
And the punchline of how they tried to sort this out is a corker, if you don't know it.
When on a German autobahn in my holiday hire car I would typically set cruise control to 150km/h.
Presumably high speeds in e-cars means that the range becomes far less than what's advertised?
What would the range be of a normal e-car today, if the full charge was used at about 80-85mph on a clear motorway ?
Aerodynamic drag is proportional to speed squared, so going 76mph instead of 62mph (123km/100km) results in 50% more aero drag, which is a huge amount of total drag and hence fuel consumption.
Electric cars generally hate motorways. So do petrol cars of course, but they can be recharged to full in 3 minutes.
And that is why if we want a quick win on road transport CO2 emissions the speed limit should be reduced to 60 mph
That's quite possibly the worst suggestion I've ever heard.
Why?
Because 70 mph is too slow as is. Especially when you have some idiot dawdling in the middle lane at 65 mph and you have an idiot in an Audi behind you.
Easy solution: let the Audi past to bully the dawdler out of the way. But keep your distance ...
If the 65mph idiot is in the middle lane why not just overtake him/her via the outside lane?
Stir fried cavallo nero, with garlic and chile, with rosemary parmentier potatoes and two small lamb steaks. Along with a fine Quinta do Crasto, 2017 Reserva, Douro red.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
Precisely I have never heard anyone talk about if it will change weather patterns. Just oh free energy....well experience tells me nothing is quite free
There’s quite a lot of research on it. They make the immediate area less cold at night.
hmm let me guess they make the immediate area less cold which then gets measured and used as proof of warming because that local weather station is providing higher tempratures than expected
I'm not sure many official weather stations are in the middle of wind farms.
Ah how quaint you think temperature effects are confined within the area of those things that affect temperature. Temperature averages out over areas and dissipates you get warmer areas dissipating heat to cooler areas so if a wind farm is a hot spot its heat will go to the cooler areas around it. If that is not obvious to you maybe you shouldnt be commenting on energy systems
2030 is an age away in AI development terms. I’d say better odds than not that drivers won’t be needed for cars by then. And if that happens, the economic forcing factors will mean it becomes quite rare for individuals to purchase, service and charge cars in large parts of the country.
As for the choice of drivetrain, it blows my mind with incentives and depreciation curves as they are, that anyone apart from apartment dwelllers or enthusiasts are still buying petrol or diesel new. Money down the toilet even today. No doubt the refuseniks will come crying for a taxpayer funded scrappage scheme when they realise what a poor decision they made buying petrol/diesel anytime after about 2024.
The government giving clear signals on the direction of the market (dressed up as a future ban) is great news because it lessens the scale of dissent when we get there.
Self driving cars are like speech recognition. It's easy to get to 99.9% (we got there with Dragon Dictate and IBM Naturally Speaking in 1999), but getting the last 0.1% that takes it from convenience feature on the highway, to actually be able to take full control of the car is not easy.
I'm in Phoenix next week and will try and travel in the Google self driving taxis while I'm there. It will be very interesting to experience.
And of course unlike speech recognition mis-translating say one word in a 1000, a self driving car making a mistake once in a 1000 miles = massive increase in road traffic accidents.
Oh, it's even worse than that. Imagine that a self driving cars realises that an accident is inevitable. It has to make a choice between hitting a baby in a pram or swerving and taking out an old person.
What should it do?
People love this fantasy, but in reality the answer is always hit the brakes.
2030 is an age away in AI development terms. I’d say better odds than not that drivers won’t be needed for cars by then. And if that happens, the economic forcing factors will mean it becomes quite rare for individuals to purchase, service and charge cars in large parts of the country.
As for the choice of drivetrain, it blows my mind with incentives and depreciation curves as they are, that anyone apart from apartment dwelllers or enthusiasts are still buying petrol or diesel new. Money down the toilet even today. No doubt the refuseniks will come crying for a taxpayer funded scrappage scheme when they realise what a poor decision they made buying petrol/diesel anytime after about 2024.
The government giving clear signals on the direction of the market (dressed up as a future ban) is great news because it lessens the scale of dissent when we get there.
Self driving cars are like speech recognition. It's easy to get to 99.9% (we got there with Dragon Dictate and IBM Naturally Speaking in 1999), but getting the last 0.1% that takes it from convenience feature on the highway, to actually be able to take full control of the car is not easy.
I'm in Phoenix next week and will try and travel in the Google self driving taxis while I'm there. It will be very interesting to experience.
And of course unlike speech recognition mis-translating say one word in a 1000, a self driving car making a mistake once in a 1000 miles = massive increase in road traffic accidents.
Oh, it's even worse than that. Imagine that a self driving cars realises that an accident is inevitable. It has to make a choice between hitting a baby in a pram or swerving and taking out an old person.
What should it do?
People love this fantasy, but in reality the answer is always hit the brakes.
Do self driving vehicles know the correct way to get out of a skid on ice?
2030 is an age away in AI development terms. I’d say better odds than not that drivers won’t be needed for cars by then. And if that happens, the economic forcing factors will mean it becomes quite rare for individuals to purchase, service and charge cars in large parts of the country.
As for the choice of drivetrain, it blows my mind with incentives and depreciation curves as they are, that anyone apart from apartment dwelllers or enthusiasts are still buying petrol or diesel new. Money down the toilet even today. No doubt the refuseniks will come crying for a taxpayer funded scrappage scheme when they realise what a poor decision they made buying petrol/diesel anytime after about 2024.
The government giving clear signals on the direction of the market (dressed up as a future ban) is great news because it lessens the scale of dissent when we get there.
Self driving cars are like speech recognition. It's easy to get to 99.9% (we got there with Dragon Dictate and IBM Naturally Speaking in 1999), but getting the last 0.1% that takes it from convenience feature on the highway, to actually be able to take full control of the car is not easy.
I'm in Phoenix next week and will try and travel in the Google self driving taxis while I'm there. It will be very interesting to experience.
And of course unlike speech recognition mis-translating say one word in a 1000, a self driving car making a mistake once in a 1000 miles = massive increase in road traffic accidents.
Oh, it's even worse than that. Imagine that a self driving cars realises that an accident is inevitable. It has to make a choice between hitting a baby in a pram or swerving and taking out an old person.
What should it do?
People love this fantasy, but in reality the answer is always hit the brakes.
Machine learning might well conclude take out the baby as it reduces the number of future humans so in the long term driving down the number killed in road traffic accidents. The problem with all ai is trying to work out how its making its decisions and that we would find their decisions work logically but would horrify us
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
Precisely I have never heard anyone talk about if it will change weather patterns. Just oh free energy....well experience tells me nothing is quite free
There’s quite a lot of research on it. They make the immediate area less cold at night.
hmm let me guess they make the immediate area less cold which then gets measured and used as proof of warming because that local weather station is providing higher tempratures than expected
A pleasingly retro feel to that. The geo-, oceanic and satellite data are singing from identical hymn sheets, and you may have noticed that once we got snow and ice and winter and stuff, and now we don't.
Have they? I don't know how they report, but in the last couple of weeks they seem to regularly go from 300 deaths per day then 1 day around 900, then down again for a few days. Cases trending down perhaps?
I think the fact that the number in both hospital and ICU has declined for the first time in three months is a positive. Far too early to say they've turned a corner, but definitely better than the alternative.
Belgium has always been a pioneer in Covid awfulness, and it looks like they've definitely peaked. For now
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
Precisely I have never heard anyone talk about if it will change weather patterns. Just oh free energy....well experience tells me nothing is quite free
There’s quite a lot of research on it. They make the immediate area less cold at night.
hmm let me guess they make the immediate area less cold which then gets measured and used as proof of warming because that local weather station is providing higher tempratures than expected
A pleasingly retro feel to that. The geo-, oceanic and satellite data are singing from identical hymn sheets, and you may have noticed that once we got snow and ice and winter and stuff, and now we don't.
We still get snow and ice and stuff and if you had read the comments you would see I dont deny climate is changing or that man has some hand in it.
Doesn't mean I think actually climate science isn't actually less accurate than horoscopes however for predicting anything because frankly they are fairly shit.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
Precisely I have never heard anyone talk about if it will change weather patterns. Just oh free energy....well experience tells me nothing is quite free
There’s quite a lot of research on it. They make the immediate area less cold at night.
hmm let me guess they make the immediate area less cold which then gets measured and used as proof of warming because that local weather station is providing higher tempratures than expected
A pleasingly retro feel to that. The geo-, oceanic and satellite data are singing from identical hymn sheets, and you may have noticed that once we got snow and ice and winter and stuff, and now we don't.
I tend to agree with you - the globe is warming, and humans are implicated - but I thought warmists were meant to avoid anecdata. "Snow will be a thing of the past"
2030 is an age away in AI development terms. I’d say better odds than not that drivers won’t be needed for cars by then. And if that happens, the economic forcing factors will mean it becomes quite rare for individuals to purchase, service and charge cars in large parts of the country.
As for the choice of drivetrain, it blows my mind with incentives and depreciation curves as they are, that anyone apart from apartment dwelllers or enthusiasts are still buying petrol or diesel new. Money down the toilet even today. No doubt the refuseniks will come crying for a taxpayer funded scrappage scheme when they realise what a poor decision they made buying petrol/diesel anytime after about 2024.
The government giving clear signals on the direction of the market (dressed up as a future ban) is great news because it lessens the scale of dissent when we get there.
Self driving cars are like speech recognition. It's easy to get to 99.9% (we got there with Dragon Dictate and IBM Naturally Speaking in 1999), but getting the last 0.1% that takes it from convenience feature on the highway, to actually be able to take full control of the car is not easy.
I'm in Phoenix next week and will try and travel in the Google self driving taxis while I'm there. It will be very interesting to experience.
And of course unlike speech recognition mis-translating say one word in a 1000, a self driving car making a mistake once in a 1000 miles = massive increase in road traffic accidents.
Oh, it's even worse than that. Imagine that a self driving cars realises that an accident is inevitable. It has to make a choice between hitting a baby in a pram or swerving and taking out an old person.
What should it do?
People love this fantasy, but in reality the answer is always hit the brakes.
Machine learning might well conclude take out the baby as it reduces the number of future humans so in the long term driving down the number killed in road traffic accidents. The problem with all ai is trying to work out how its making its decisions and that we would find their decisions work logically but would horrify us
If AI that good becomes affordable for cars, then we’ll have long been down the road to either enslaved by out machine overlords or Fully Automatic Luxury Gay Space Communism a la Iain Banks’ Culture.
2030 is an age away in AI development terms. I’d say better odds than not that drivers won’t be needed for cars by then. And if that happens, the economic forcing factors will mean it becomes quite rare for individuals to purchase, service and charge cars in large parts of the country.
As for the choice of drivetrain, it blows my mind with incentives and depreciation curves as they are, that anyone apart from apartment dwelllers or enthusiasts are still buying petrol or diesel new. Money down the toilet even today. No doubt the refuseniks will come crying for a taxpayer funded scrappage scheme when they realise what a poor decision they made buying petrol/diesel anytime after about 2024.
The government giving clear signals on the direction of the market (dressed up as a future ban) is great news because it lessens the scale of dissent when we get there.
Self driving cars are like speech recognition. It's easy to get to 99.9% (we got there with Dragon Dictate and IBM Naturally Speaking in 1999), but getting the last 0.1% that takes it from convenience feature on the highway, to actually be able to take full control of the car is not easy.
I'm in Phoenix next week and will try and travel in the Google self driving taxis while I'm there. It will be very interesting to experience.
And of course unlike speech recognition mis-translating say one word in a 1000, a self driving car making a mistake once in a 1000 miles = massive increase in road traffic accidents.
Oh, it's even worse than that. Imagine that a self driving cars realises that an accident is inevitable. It has to make a choice between hitting a baby in a pram or swerving and taking out an old person.
What should it do?
People love this fantasy, but in reality the answer is always hit the brakes.
Machine learning might well conclude take out the baby as it reduces the number of future humans so in the long term driving down the number killed in road traffic accidents. The problem with all ai is trying to work out how its making its decisions and that we would find their decisions work logically but would horrify us
You should watch Tom Scott's video on the intelligent systems that made everyone forget every song ever made by the Beatles...
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
Precisely I have never heard anyone talk about if it will change weather patterns. Just oh free energy....well experience tells me nothing is quite free
There’s quite a lot of research on it. They make the immediate area less cold at night.
hmm let me guess they make the immediate area less cold which then gets measured and used as proof of warming because that local weather station is providing higher tempratures than expected
A pleasingly retro feel to that. The geo-, oceanic and satellite data are singing from identical hymn sheets, and you may have noticed that once we got snow and ice and winter and stuff, and now we don't.
I tend to agree with you - the globe is warming, and humans are implicated - but I thought warmists were meant to avoid anecdata. "Snow will be a thing of the past"
We have had famously bitter, snowy winters in recent memory
They shot themselves in the foot. They got so bored of people saying "How come it got down to -2 last night AND the night before, global warming my foot, hur hur hur" that they took to saying "weather isn't climate" when of course it bloody is.
On the subject of wind power, something I am curious about. Not saying I have anything against wind power either. Given that energy is neither destroyed nor created and that wind power is basically kinetic energy generated by air moving from a high pressure area to a low pressure area. Our taking with windmills some of that kinetic energy to turn to electric must effect weather patterns. Maybe high pressure areas or low pressure areas dissipate more slowly. Is there any research on this and what the effects may be?
I've always wondered exactly the same thing. It has to slow the remaining wind down.
Precisely I have never heard anyone talk about if it will change weather patterns. Just oh free energy....well experience tells me nothing is quite free
There’s quite a lot of research on it. They make the immediate area less cold at night.
hmm let me guess they make the immediate area less cold which then gets measured and used as proof of warming because that local weather station is providing higher tempratures than expected
A pleasingly retro feel to that. The geo-, oceanic and satellite data are singing from identical hymn sheets, and you may have noticed that once we got snow and ice and winter and stuff, and now we don't.
A couple of days ago my 16 year old son observed, no doubt remembering the short run of snow disrupted winters earlier this decade, "it doesn't snow like it did when I was a kid".
The Government seem to increasingly (and have done for some time) think they're operating under an American Presidential system of Government (and an American system freed of the checks and balances in that system, particularly restrictions on the ability to spend money), ignorant of the fact that they are supposed to draw their authority from the House of Commons, and are answerable to them. This has been made worse by Parliament giving away the ability to oversee and control Government actions during the pandemic which has left the Government effectively able to govern by ministerial fiat. Perhaps it is a good thing for the future that it has turned into such a disaster.
And however much the ousting of the malign influence of Cummings is a good thing, the situation is not improved if it has been replaced by the influence of Johnson's fiancee.
The Government seem to increasingly (and have done for some time) think they're operating under an American Presidential system of Government (and an American system freed of the checks and balances in that system, particularly restrictions on the ability to spend money), ignorant of the fact that they are supposed to draw their authority from the House of Commons, and are answerable to them. This has been made worse by Parliament giving away the ability to oversee and control Government actions during the pandemic which has left the Government effectively able to govern by ministerial fiat. Perhaps it is a good thing for the future that it has turned into such a disaster.
And however much the ousting of the malign influence of Cummings is a good thing, the situation is not improved if it has been replaced by the influence of Johnson's fiancee.
This is the worst government in my lifetime by a country mile.
And however much the ousting of the malign influence of Cummings is a good thing, the situation is not improved if it has been replaced by the influence of Johnson's fiancee.
The common factor being BoZo
A man with no plan.
Until he is defenestrated, the drift will continue.
The Government seem to increasingly (and have done for some time) think they're operating under an American Presidential system of Government (and an American system freed of the checks and balances in that system, particularly restrictions on the ability to spend money), ignorant of the fact that they are supposed to draw their authority from the House of Commons, and are answerable to them. This has been made worse by Parliament giving away the ability to oversee and control Government actions during the pandemic which has left the Government effectively able to govern by ministerial fiat. Perhaps it is a good thing for the future that it has turned into such a disaster.
And however much the ousting of the malign influence of Cummings is a good thing, the situation is not improved if it has been replaced by the influence of Johnson's fiancee.
This is the worst government in my lifetime by a country mile.
You've got impressive typing skills for a sixteen month old.
Astonishing that somebody who can see right through Trump can be so fawning over Johnson. For no other reason than "Brexit", a policy dubious in conception that has been implemented appallingly.
The Government seem to increasingly (and have done for some time) think they're operating under an American Presidential system of Government (and an American system freed of the checks and balances in that system, particularly restrictions on the ability to spend money), ignorant of the fact that they are supposed to draw their authority from the House of Commons, and are answerable to them. This has been made worse by Parliament giving away the ability to oversee and control Government actions during the pandemic which has left the Government effectively able to govern by ministerial fiat. Perhaps it is a good thing for the future that it has turned into such a disaster.
And however much the ousting of the malign influence of Cummings is a good thing, the situation is not improved if it has been replaced by the influence of Johnson's fiancee.
This is the worst government in my lifetime by a country mile.
You've got impressive typing skills for a sixteen month old.
You are seriously arguing that May was worse - in what way?
The Government seem to increasingly (and have done for some time) think they're operating under an American Presidential system of Government (and an American system freed of the checks and balances in that system, particularly restrictions on the ability to spend money), ignorant of the fact that they are supposed to draw their authority from the House of Commons, and are answerable to them. This has been made worse by Parliament giving away the ability to oversee and control Government actions during the pandemic which has left the Government effectively able to govern by ministerial fiat. Perhaps it is a good thing for the future that it has turned into such a disaster.
And however much the ousting of the malign influence of Cummings is a good thing, the situation is not improved if it has been replaced by the influence of Johnson's fiancee.
This is the worst government in my lifetime by a country mile.
You've got impressive typing skills for a sixteen month old.
You are seriously arguing that May was worse - in what way?
She was not "pure". Boris has given us BREXIT.....
When on a German autobahn in my holiday hire car I would typically set cruise control to 150km/h.
Presumably high speeds in e-cars means that the range becomes far less than what's advertised?
What would the range be of a normal e-car today, if the full charge was used at about 80-85mph on a clear motorway ?
Aerodynamic drag is proportional to speed squared, so going 76mph instead of 62mph (123km/100km) results in 50% more aero drag, which is a huge amount of total drag and hence fuel consumption.
Electric cars generally hate motorways. So do petrol cars of course, but they can be recharged to full in 3 minutes.
And that is why if we want a quick win on road transport CO2 emissions the speed limit should be reduced to 60 mph
That's quite possibly the worst suggestion I've ever heard.
Why?
Because 70 mph is too slow as is. Especially when you have some idiot dawdling in the middle lane at 65 mph and you have an idiot in an Audi behind you.
The Government seem to increasingly (and have done for some time) think they're operating under an American Presidential system of Government (and an American system freed of the checks and balances in that system, particularly restrictions on the ability to spend money), ignorant of the fact that they are supposed to draw their authority from the House of Commons, and are answerable to them. This has been made worse by Parliament giving away the ability to oversee and control Government actions during the pandemic which has left the Government effectively able to govern by ministerial fiat. Perhaps it is a good thing for the future that it has turned into such a disaster.
And however much the ousting of the malign influence of Cummings is a good thing, the situation is not improved if it has been replaced by the influence of Johnson's fiancee.
This is the worst government in my lifetime by a country mile.
You've got impressive typing skills for a sixteen month old.
You are seriously arguing that May was worse - in what way?
She guaranteed a fairly terrible Brexit with her Red Lines Conference speech, which was entirely unnecessary, and painted the UK into a stupid corner. Until then a lot of Brexiteers would have happily settled for a period of time in the EEA, EFTA, whatever. She made that impossible. All else has flowed therefrom.
She was an autistic, linear, pedestrian, emphatic idiot at the precise time we needed a more intelligent and emollient Borisonian figure. Ironically, she'd now be a better manager of Covid than Boris: she'd be more like Merkel
The UK has been politically unlucky for a couple of decades.
Yet another nail in the coffin of the idea that there was some fantasy fraud operation that produced thousands of isolated votes for Biden whilst leaving the other down ballot races untouched.
Not much different from the Pfizer vaccine then. Oxford is single dose, Pfizer is double dose, weeks apart. And can't be coincided with flu vaccine either.
Stir fried cavallo nero, with garlic and chile, with rosemary parmentier potatoes and two small lamb steaks. Along with a fine Quinta do Crasto, 2017 Reserva, Douro red.
The Government seem to increasingly (and have done for some time) think they're operating under an American Presidential system of Government (and an American system freed of the checks and balances in that system, particularly restrictions on the ability to spend money), ignorant of the fact that they are supposed to draw their authority from the House of Commons, and are answerable to them. This has been made worse by Parliament giving away the ability to oversee and control Government actions during the pandemic which has left the Government effectively able to govern by ministerial fiat. Perhaps it is a good thing for the future that it has turned into such a disaster.
And however much the ousting of the malign influence of Cummings is a good thing, the situation is not improved if it has been replaced by the influence of Johnson's fiancee.
This is the worst government in my lifetime by a country mile.
You've got impressive typing skills for a sixteen month old.
You are seriously arguing that May was worse - in what way?
She guaranteed a fairly terrible Brexit with her Red Lines Conference speech, which was entirely unnecessary, and painted the UK into a stupid corner. Until then a lot of Brexiteers would have happily settled for a period of time in the EEA, EFTA, whatever. She made that impossible. All else has flowed therefrom.
She was an autistic, linear, pedestrian, emphatic idiot at the precise time we needed a more intelligent and emollient Borisonian figure. Ironically, she'd now be a better manager of Covid than Boris: she'd be more like Merkel
The UK has been politically unlucky for a couple of decades.
If it has been a couple of decade, then it has nothing to do with luck. It is systemic.
The Government seem to increasingly (and have done for some time) think they're operating under an American Presidential system of Government (and an American system freed of the checks and balances in that system, particularly restrictions on the ability to spend money), ignorant of the fact that they are supposed to draw their authority from the House of Commons, and are answerable to them. This has been made worse by Parliament giving away the ability to oversee and control Government actions during the pandemic which has left the Government effectively able to govern by ministerial fiat. Perhaps it is a good thing for the future that it has turned into such a disaster.
And however much the ousting of the malign influence of Cummings is a good thing, the situation is not improved if it has been replaced by the influence of Johnson's fiancee.
This is the worst government in my lifetime by a country mile.
You've got impressive typing skills for a sixteen month old.
You are seriously arguing that May was worse - in what way?
She guaranteed a fairly terrible Brexit with her Red Lines Conference speech, which was entirely unnecessary, and painted the UK into a stupid corner. Until then a lot of Brexiteers would have happily settled for a period of time in the EEA, EFTA, whatever. She made that impossible. All else has flowed therefrom.
She was an autistic, linear, pedestrian, emphatic idiot at the precise time we needed a more intelligent and emollient Borisonian figure. Ironically, she'd now be a better manager of Covid than Boris: she'd be more like Merkel
The UK has been politically unlucky for a couple of decades.
That's true. And maybe a Boris who hadn't been back-stabbed by Gove in 2016 would have razzle-dazzled the population to a tolerably soft Brexit. Who knows?
But TM, flawed and overpromoted as she was, was the poor bugger given the exploding parcel to open. And her plan wasn't that stupid an answer to the question "What concrete worries drove the Brexit vote? What is the least harmful way of doing something about those worries?" Because she thought linearly from "people have voted for X" to "there's valid reason Y"- whereas BoJo supported Brexit so he could have a go in the Big Chair.
That might make TM a worse politician, though I'm not sure it makes her more calamitous. But it definitely makes her a better person than her successor. And I'd rather have a government that struggled (and often failed) to do the right thing than one that didn't even try.
"I have no doubt we haven’t seen the last of [Cummings]. I can imagine Boris bringing him back to run the General Election campaign in 2024 when he’s trailing Keir Starmer in the polls with two weeks to go. "
Yet another nail in the coffin of the idea that there was some fantasy fraud operation that produced thousands of isolated votes for Biden whilst leaving the other down ballot races untouched.
Didn’t Biden win a couple of States because the Libertarian candidate took votes off Trump? It was a guido
2030 is an age away in AI development terms. I’d say better odds than not that drivers won’t be needed for cars by then. And if that happens, the economic forcing factors will mean it becomes quite rare for individuals to purchase, service and charge cars in large parts of the country.
As for the choice of drivetrain, it blows my mind with incentives and depreciation curves as they are, that anyone apart from apartment dwelllers or enthusiasts are still buying petrol or diesel new. Money down the toilet even today. No doubt the refuseniks will come crying for a taxpayer funded scrappage scheme when they realise what a poor decision they made buying petrol/diesel anytime after about 2024.
The government giving clear signals on the direction of the market (dressed up as a future ban) is great news because it lessens the scale of dissent when we get there.
Self driving cars are like speech recognition. It's easy to get to 99.9% (we got there with Dragon Dictate and IBM Naturally Speaking in 1999), but getting the last 0.1% that takes it from convenience feature on the highway, to actually be able to take full control of the car is not easy.
I'm in Phoenix next week and will try and travel in the Google self driving taxis while I'm there. It will be very interesting to experience.
And of course unlike speech recognition mis-translating say one word in a 1000, a self driving car making a mistake once in a 1000 miles = massive increase in road traffic accidents.
Oh, it's even worse than that. Imagine that a self driving cars realises that an accident is inevitable. It has to make a choice between hitting a baby in a pram or swerving and taking out an old person.
What should it do?
People love this fantasy, but in reality the answer is always hit the brakes.
Machine learning might well conclude take out the baby as it reduces the number of future humans so in the long term driving down the number killed in road traffic accidents. The problem with all ai is trying to work out how its making its decisions and that we would find their decisions work logically but would horrify us
If AI that good becomes affordable for cars, then we’ll have long been down the road to either enslaved by out machine overlords or Fully Automatic Luxury Gay Space Communism a la Iain Banks’ Culture.
Thank you for the best description of the Culture yet.
Yet another nail in the coffin of the idea that there was some fantasy fraud operation that produced thousands of isolated votes for Biden whilst leaving the other down ballot races untouched.
Didn’t Biden win a couple of States because the Libertarian candidate took votes off Trump? It was a guido
It was actually a fairly next wing libertarian this time around, so it probably didn't have much effect.
When on a German autobahn in my holiday hire car I would typically set cruise control to 150km/h.
Presumably high speeds in e-cars means that the range becomes far less than what's advertised?
What would the range be of a normal e-car today, if the full charge was used at about 80-85mph on a clear motorway ?
Aerodynamic drag is proportional to speed squared, so going 76mph instead of 62mph (123km/100km) results in 50% more aero drag, which is a huge amount of total drag and hence fuel consumption.
Electric cars generally hate motorways. So do petrol cars of course, but they can be recharged to full in 3 minutes.
And that is why if we want a quick win on road transport CO2 emissions the speed limit should be reduced to 60 mph
That's quite possibly the worst suggestion I've ever heard.
Why?
Because 70 mph is too slow as is. Especially when you have some idiot dawdling in the middle lane at 65 mph and you have an idiot in an Audi behind you.
If you want to go faster take a train.
That's 95% of the land area out of reach then. How would I get to Ullapool from the Flatlands, for example? (Something I did quite frequently before Covid)
I certainly don't find fuel consumption is 50% worse at 76mph than 62mph. 10-15% perhaps. Remember that you are also going 20% quicker so you spend 20% less time pushing air.
You don't solve problems like this by making things worse. You solve them by making things better.
If an electric car can do the same trip easily, than I'll have one. Until then...
When on a German autobahn in my holiday hire car I would typically set cruise control to 150km/h.
Presumably high speeds in e-cars means that the range becomes far less than what's advertised?
What would the range be of a normal e-car today, if the full charge was used at about 80-85mph on a clear motorway ?
Aerodynamic drag is proportional to speed squared, so going 76mph instead of 62mph (123km/100km) results in 50% more aero drag, which is a huge amount of total drag and hence fuel consumption.
Electric cars generally hate motorways. So do petrol cars of course, but they can be recharged to full in 3 minutes.
And that is why if we want a quick win on road transport CO2 emissions the speed limit should be reduced to 60 mph
That's quite possibly the worst suggestion I've ever heard.
Why?
Because 70 mph is too slow as is. Especially when you have some idiot dawdling in the middle lane at 65 mph and you have an idiot in an Audi behind you.
If you want to go faster take a train.
That's 95% of the land area out of reach then. How would I get to Ullapool from the Flatlands, for example? (Something I did quite frequently before Covid)
I certainly don't find fuel consumption is 50% worse at 76mph than 62mph. 10-15% perhaps. Remember that you are also going 20% quicker so you spend 20% less time pushing air.
You don't solve problems like this by making things worse. You solve them by making things better.
If an electric car can do the same trip easily, than I'll have one. Until then...
I believe a Model 3 Tesla can do something like 250 miles at 80mph...
2030 is an age away in AI development terms. I’d say better odds than not that drivers won’t be needed for cars by then. And if that happens, the economic forcing factors will mean it becomes quite rare for individuals to purchase, service and charge cars in large parts of the country.
As for the choice of drivetrain, it blows my mind with incentives and depreciation curves as they are, that anyone apart from apartment dwelllers or enthusiasts are still buying petrol or diesel new. Money down the toilet even today. No doubt the refuseniks will come crying for a taxpayer funded scrappage scheme when they realise what a poor decision they made buying petrol/diesel anytime after about 2024.
The government giving clear signals on the direction of the market (dressed up as a future ban) is great news because it lessens the scale of dissent when we get there.
Self driving cars are like speech recognition. It's easy to get to 99.9% (we got there with Dragon Dictate and IBM Naturally Speaking in 1999), but getting the last 0.1% that takes it from convenience feature on the highway, to actually be able to take full control of the car is not easy.
I'm in Phoenix next week and will try and travel in the Google self driving taxis while I'm there. It will be very interesting to experience.
And of course unlike speech recognition mis-translating say one word in a 1000, a self driving car making a mistake once in a 1000 miles = massive increase in road traffic accidents.
Oh, it's even worse than that. Imagine that a self driving cars realises that an accident is inevitable. It has to make a choice between hitting a baby in a pram or swerving and taking out an old person.
What should it do?
People love this fantasy, but in reality the answer is always hit the brakes.
Machine learning might well conclude take out the baby as it reduces the number of future humans so in the long term driving down the number killed in road traffic accidents. The problem with all ai is trying to work out how its making its decisions and that we would find their decisions work logically but would horrify us
If AI that good becomes affordable for cars, then we’ll have long been down the road to either enslaved by out machine overlords or Fully Automatic Luxury Gay Space Communism a la Iain Banks’ Culture.
Thank you for the best description of the Culture yet.
“I do not see, short of finding some type of fraud — which I haven’t heard of anything — I don’t see us in any serious way addressing a change in electors,” said Rusty Bowers, Arizona’s Republican House speaker, who says he’s been inundated with emails pleading for the legislature to intervene. “They are mandated by statute to choose according to the vote of the people"
People have a more tenuous connection with democracy than we'd like to think. See all those few people thinking the Queen might not sign various legislation they don't like and getting angry about her not 'saving' us (minus the people who don't genuinely think that, but pretend they do to be 'funny')
Comments
And of course there is wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_wind_power
"The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" is the full mouthful.
Rough ballpark figures:
The Sun's radiation onto the Earth is about 90 000 TW
Of that, about 1 000 TW ends up as wind (most of the energy gets re-radiated into space)
The total energy consumption of humanity is about 20 TW.
The energy is there; the big problem is that a lot of it is pretty diffuse, and modern technology depends on energy being concentrated.
Do I think the climate is changing? Yes
Do I think humans are at least partially responsible? Yes
Do I think that anything we do now can stop that? Not sure but doubt it
Do I think we should put money into adapting to a changing climate? yes
Do I think climate scientists know enough to predict anything? Absolutely no. Its misleading to call it science it is more at the stage of alchemy in the 17th century
I'm not sure many official weather stations are in the middle of wind farms.
And the punchline of how they tried to sort this out is a corker, if you don't know it.
BBC News - Felixstowe Port in 'chaos' as Christmas and Brexit loom
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54908129
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1327551156617420800?s=19
Thanks for asking
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/belgium/
Doesn't mean I think actually climate science isn't actually less accurate than horoscopes however for predicting anything because frankly they are fairly shit.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2018/01/04/flashback-2000-snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-children-just-arent-going-to-know-what-snow-is-uk-independent/
We have had famously bitter, snowy winters in recent memory
And however much the ousting of the malign influence of Cummings is a good thing, the situation is not improved if it has been replaced by the influence of Johnson's fiancee.
A man with no plan.
Until he is defenestrated, the drift will continue.
Have I read this right? Stratton had been in the job two weeks and there was already discussions about a f*cking pay rise.
Meanwhile, under Lockdown 2.0 tens of thousands of jobs and businesses are failing.
She was an autistic, linear, pedestrian, emphatic idiot at the precise time we needed a more intelligent and emollient Borisonian figure. Ironically, she'd now be a better manager of Covid than Boris: she'd be more like Merkel
The UK has been politically unlucky for a couple of decades.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13199654/millions-of-covid-vaccine-ready-by-christmas/
Covid: What are the rules for winter holidays and going abroad?
https://www.bbc.com/news/explainers-53221896
But TM, flawed and overpromoted as she was, was the poor bugger given the exploding parcel to open. And her plan wasn't that stupid an answer to the question "What concrete worries drove the Brexit vote? What is the least harmful way of doing something about those worries?" Because she thought linearly from "people have voted for X" to "there's valid reason Y"- whereas BoJo supported Brexit so he could have a go in the Big Chair.
That might make TM a worse politician, though I'm not sure it makes her more calamitous. But it definitely makes her a better person than her successor. And I'd rather have a government that struggled (and often failed) to do the right thing than one that didn't even try.
https://twitter.com/ReverendWarnock/status/1327729376864169985?s=19
Daily coronavirus cases are rising in all 50 states
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/coronavirus-cases-rising-50-states/
Toby Young.
No, no, please make it stop.
Even though you left out the sadism....
I certainly don't find fuel consumption is 50% worse at 76mph than 62mph. 10-15% perhaps. Remember that you are also going 20% quicker so you spend 20% less time pushing air.
You don't solve problems like this by making things worse. You solve them by making things better.
If an electric car can do the same trip easily, than I'll have one. Until then...
People have a more tenuous connection with democracy than we'd like to think. See all those few people thinking the Queen might not sign various legislation they don't like and getting angry about her not 'saving' us (minus the people who don't genuinely think that, but pretend they do to be 'funny')