This polling on the COVID crisis from Survation is not very good for ministers – politicalbetting.co

Big_G_NorthWales said:

YouGov coming in line maybe

https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1398679204556939265?s=19

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

Cyclefree said:

Well, off to do another evening shift at Daughter's establishment. First long shift of season (for me) was yesterday. Very busy - despite an early table not bothering to show up. Fortunately others came.

But - bastards! How hard is it to ring and cancel. Every no-show costs money, especially if you've turned away others to take the booking. I hope they caught food poisoning at whatever horrible establishment they went to instead.

Anyway I must be off and spread charm and cheer and delicious lamb shank to all and sundry.....

HYUFD said:

Monkeys said:

Given that the last election produced a result for Labour that was worse than any election since before they had the capacity to form majority government, I don't see any reason outside of Government Losing that would allow them to form majority government again. It would be good for them if the SNP would bugger off - if England and Wales smell even the slightest chance that they'd have to go into coalition with a party who's aim is to make sure Westminster cannot operate, they'll reject it, and it would be good for Labour if the middle-class student politics pisstake that likes to wave copies of Chairman Mao's Little Red Book around at budget debates, and buys into the more racist parts of the pro-palestine mob would piss off too.

Without the support of Scottish SNP MPs there is literally zero chance of a Labour government in 2024.

The Tories won a comfortable UK majority of 80 in 2019 but a landslide majority of 157 in England

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

Fysics_Teacher said:

Cyclefree said:

Well, off to do another evening shift at Daughter's establishment. First long shift of season (for me) was yesterday. Very busy - despite an early table not bothering to show up. Fortunately others came.

But - bastards! How hard is it to ring and cancel. Every no-show costs money, especially if you've turned away others to take the booking. I hope they caught food poisoning at whatever horrible establishment they went to instead.

Anyway I must be off and spread charm and cheer and delicious lamb shank to all and sundry.....

I assume that plumbers have only a 50:50 chance of turning up on the day that they say, let alone the time, so it doesn't surprise me that diners might be no-shows.

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.

For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.

Heat
Cannot of itself
Move
From a cold body to a hotter.

You surely know better than I do.

I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.

Malmesbury said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Cyclefree said:

Well, off to do another evening shift at Daughter's establishment. First long shift of season (for me) was yesterday. Very busy - despite an early table not bothering to show up. Fortunately others came.

But - bastards! How hard is it to ring and cancel. Every no-show costs money, especially if you've turned away others to take the booking. I hope they caught food poisoning at whatever horrible establishment they went to instead.

Anyway I must be off and spread charm and cheer and delicious lamb shank to all and sundry.....

I assume that plumbers have only a 50:50 chance of turning up on the day that they say, let alone the time, so it doesn't surprise me that diners might be no-shows.

Sadly this is a nearly universal phenomenon - it relates to how people use communication. So it is entirely standard in recruitment, for example, that not getting the job means that no-one will ever call/email you. Just silence.

One entertaining version of this is that when you hire people - and I mean at a serious job level, banks, high end iT etc - a certain percentage will simply not turn up on their designated first day. Or ever....

GIN1138 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

They are still pushing this....

Angela Rayner demands detailed answers on Boris Johnson’s refurb

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/29/angela-rayner-demands-detailed-answers-on-boris-johnsons-refurb

As Tone used to say. Draw a line and move on...

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?

As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.

Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.

There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.

Omnium said:

RobD said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.

For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.

Heat
Cannot of itself
Move
From a cold body to a hotter.

You surely know better than I do.

I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.

Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?

No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

RobD said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.

For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.

Heat
Cannot of itself
Move
From a cold body to a hotter.

You surely know better than I do.

I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.

Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?

No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)

The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred.
That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).

Cookie said:

northern_monkey said:

Floater said:

Just back from walking the dog.

Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups

Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.

I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.

There, I’ve said it.

And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.

Sorry.

Unfortunately, normalcy is one of those anachronisms which long ago fell out of English English but continued in America. Probably a suitably pedantic linguist could point to examples in Shakespeare or Dickens.
But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.

IshmaelZ said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well...
The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.

They would if you wrote it in full

GIN1138 said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

They are still pushing this....

Angela Rayner demands detailed answers on Boris Johnson’s refurb

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/may/29/angela-rayner-demands-detailed-answers-on-boris-johnsons-refurb

As Tone used to say. Draw a line and move on...

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

RobD said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.

For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.

Heat
Cannot of itself
Move
From a cold body to a hotter.

You surely know better than I do.

I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.

Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?

No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)

The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred.
That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).

A most excellent post Mr FT

Fysics_Teacher said:

IshmaelZ said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well...
The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.

They would if you wrote it in full

Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

IshmaelZ said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well...
The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.

They would if you wrote it in full

Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.

Go on. There's more needed.

kinabalu said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.

Trump Derangement Syndrome being more accurately described as having the smarts and intuition to appreciate the horror and danger of the man whilst tedious complacent farts were bandying round the term Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

RobD said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.

For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.

Heat
Cannot of itself
Move
From a cold body to a hotter.

You surely know better than I do.

I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.

Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?

No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)

The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred.
That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).

A most excellent post Mr FT

Can you tell what I do for a living?

MarqueeMark said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

RobD said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.

For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.

Heat
Cannot of itself
Move
From a cold body to a hotter.

You surely know better than I do.

I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.

Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?

No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)

The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred.
That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).

A most excellent post Mr FT

Can you tell what I do for a living?

I hope most people on here are professional Piñata makers.

Given that when anyone posts something, other people - gleefully - set about whacking it viciously with sticks....

Malmesbury said:

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?

As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.

Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.

There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.

Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.

Why?

The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.

The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.

For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.

rcs1000 said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

IshmaelZ said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well...
The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.

They would if you wrote it in full

Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.

I know, it's like those idiots that don't realise how Han was able to make the Kessel Run in less than 12 parseces.

Malmesbury said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?

As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.

Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.

There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.

Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.

Also, to paraphrase Portia, there are a lot of people who say they want justice but might be very disappointed if they actually got it.

For! Great! Justice!

Cookie said:

northern_monkey said:

Floater said:

Just back from walking the dog.

Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups

Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.

I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.

There, I’ve said it.

And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.

Sorry.

Unfortunately, normalcy is one of those anachronisms which long ago fell out of English English but continued in America. Probably a suitably pedantic linguist could point to examples in Shakespeare or Dickens.
But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.

DayTripper said:

Cookie said:

northern_monkey said:

Floater said:

Just back from walking the dog.

Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups

Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.

I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.

There, I’ve said it.

And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.

Sorry.

Unfortunately, normalcy is one of those anachronisms which long ago fell out of English English but continued in America. Probably a suitably pedantic linguist could point to examples in Shakespeare or Dickens.
But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.

I hate "normalcy" too. We don't say "realcy", or "formalcy" do we?

borisatsun said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

borisatsun said:

I wonder if this covid polling will have as devastating an effect on Boris's popularity as, well, everything else..

On my current family tree obsession; I've hit the mother lode!

I've found a direct line back to the Battle of Hastings, and beyond. Turns out I'm a descendant of Robert Bigod, William the Conqueror's chamberlain.

Since this leads me back into Norman nobility, it pretty much takes me everywhere. Including made up places.

According to work done by others I have blood links to the first Duke of Normandy, Kings and Queens of every medieval European country, lines back to Holy Roman Emperors and Roman Emprerors. And then even more fun with Uther Pendragon, Queen Viviene of Avallon (revered as Lady of the Lake and who it's claimed is descended from Mary Magdalene and JESUS ffs), to Kings of Greek states who claimed descendence from their Gods - I've found claimed blood links back to Zeus and Gaia..

I think my work there might be done.

I think there's a cheese called Baron Bigod, so you're sort of a big cheese in the world of cheese too.

I will be buying that cheese!

I look forward to serving it to my father, explaining the provenance of the name, and how he's not linked to it but Mum and I are, while drinking his fine wine

Fysics_Teacher said:

MarqueeMark said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

RobD said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

Physics is just wonderful. You can write a few lines on a piece of paper and it tells you why moons and planets do what they do. It's simply the best poetry. However it can't sing its song everywhere, and there are my concerns.

For what it's worth nobody understands much of physics, but there's more than that in that there are certainly missing (and probably impossible to understand) pieces.

Heat
Cannot of itself
Move
From a cold body to a hotter.

You surely know better than I do.

I'd point out that heat (vibration) moves both ways as to cold versus hot. A cold thing will heat a warm thing (and get colder), but the warm thing will cool much more rapidly whilst it's heating the cold thing.

Isn't that just the result of it moving one way?

No - the vibrations (heat) move both ways. The hot bits are going nuts and vibrating like mad men. The colder bits are still doing their stuff though. (Actually entirely like political parties)

The phrase "thermal equilibrium" hints at the fact that when two things are at the same temperature then the rate of heat transfer is the same in both directions, not that there is no heat being transferred.
That leads to the Zeroth law of Thermodynamics of course (and no, I'm not making that one up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeroth_law_of_thermodynamics).

A most excellent post Mr FT

Can you tell what I do for a living?

I hope most people on here are professional Piñata makers.

Given that when anyone posts something, other people - gleefully - set about whacking it viciously with sticks....

Any teacher who can't respond to questions about what they are teaching isn't going to last long in class.

Do you mind if I use that analogy at school BTW?

rottenborough said:

Owen Jones Rose
@OwenJones84
·
7h
The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.



I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

IshmaelZ said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well...
The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.

They would if you wrote it in full

Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.

Go on. There's more needed.

Now you have me: please explain what I have missed?
(Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).

Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?

You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.

One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.

Daveyboy1961 said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

IshmaelZ said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well...
The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.

They would if you wrote it in full

Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.

Go on. There's more needed.

Now you have me: please explain what I have missed?
(Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).

Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?

You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.

One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.

Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.

(a retired teacher)

Fysics_Teacher said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

IshmaelZ said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well...
The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.

They would if you wrote it in full

Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.

Go on. There's more needed.

Now you have me: please explain what I have missed?
(Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).

Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?

You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.

One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.

Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.

(a retired teacher)

Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.

To answer your question, parsec is a contraction of parallax arcsecond.

MarqueeMark said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

IshmaelZ said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well...
The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.

They would if you wrote it in full

Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.

Go on. There's more needed.

Now you have me: please explain what I have missed?
(Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).

Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?

You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.

One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.

Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.

(a retired teacher)

Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.

So - on the Isle of Man, the bikes race against the parallax angle?

I'd always wondered....

Omnium said:

borisatsun said:

Luckyguy1983 said:

borisatsun said:

I wonder if this covid polling will have as devastating an effect on Boris's popularity as, well, everything else..

On my current family tree obsession; I've hit the mother lode!

I've found a direct line back to the Battle of Hastings, and beyond. Turns out I'm a descendant of Robert Bigod, William the Conqueror's chamberlain.

Since this leads me back into Norman nobility, it pretty much takes me everywhere. Including made up places.

According to work done by others I have blood links to the first Duke of Normandy, Kings and Queens of every medieval European country, lines back to Holy Roman Emperors and Roman Emprerors. And then even more fun with Uther Pendragon, Queen Viviene of Avallon (revered as Lady of the Lake and who it's claimed is descended from Mary Magdalene and JESUS ffs), to Kings of Greek states who claimed descendence from their Gods - I've found claimed blood links back to Zeus and Gaia..

I think my work there might be done.

I think there's a cheese called Baron Bigod, so you're sort of a big cheese in the world of cheese too.

I will be buying that cheese!

I look forward to serving it to my father, explaining the provenance of the name, and how he's not linked to it but Mum and I are, while drinking his fine wine

British cheeses are great. British cheeses along the lines of those that the French make are really good too. British wines seem to work as well.

The only real market (tongue in cheek) for top quality food is London. That has to be scary for the French!

Malmesbury said:

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?

As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.

Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.

There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.

Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.

Why?

The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.

The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.

For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?

As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.

Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.

There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.

Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.

Why?

The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.

The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.

For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.

If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.

But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.

Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

kinabalu said:

Malmesbury said:

DougSeal said:

Richard_Tyndall said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

Remembering the age old quote about Oppositions not winning elections but Governments losing them, do you not think it entirely possible that Starmer might be able to win simply by being 'normal' and, most importantly, not being Johnson?

As I said to HYUFD it’s possible, a lot is possible, but not very likely. People need a credible alternative vision. Remain lost because they just said, essentially “yeah, this is a bit pants, but the alternative is worse” whereas leave said “This is going to be great!”. We can (and indeed have) argued as to the veracity of that prospectus but it is undeniable they were more enthusiastic about their vision. What do Labour actually believe in at the moment? Are they a social justice or an economic justice party? They should try and be both but squaring the circle is proving impossible.

Yes - a positive vision, not a negative one. "The EU will punish you for being naughty" seemed to be slogan of Remain.

There is a plenty of space for a social and economic justice program. The key is to sell it as social and economic justice for *everyone* rather than a matrix of special interests. If you look at the Labour manifesto in 45, for example, it was about *everyone* - not just a set of client groups.

Economic and social justice for everyone sounds great but is of course fatuous bollocks. It means absolutely nothing.

Why?

The entire concept of 19th Cent Socialism was that it was about re-engineering society to be better for everyone.

The original ideas was to create a set of universal laws and customs that would provide equalised opportunity and outcomes.

For example - the NHS wasn't a means tested benefit for poor people. Despite the fact that rich people had no health care access issues.

If we could enact big policies to make everyone significantly better off - all winners no losers - we'd just do it and that would be the End of Politics.

But we can't - and hence it isn't - because there are competing interests and agendas. So it's about choices and priorities. That's what politics is. That's the reality of it.

Course people and parties can PRETEND their politics is about benefiting everyone - and they do - but that's either delusion or spin. The latter being great if you can pull it off. It's a classic way to get elected.

squareroot2 said:

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

I will make it a point to study it... but if you believe you can brush antisemitism under the carpet because Corbyn has gone that's nonsense... it a de minimus to understand that that' changing the leader doesn't wipe the slate clean.. .Go away and think about why I am right.

Fysics_Teacher said:

MarqueeMark said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Daveyboy1961 said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

Omnium said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

IshmaelZ said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

kinabalu said:

squareroot2 said:

Omnium said:

squareroot2 said:

DougSeal said:

HYUFD said:

DougSeal said:

All this is kind of spectacularly missing the point. “Trouble” will only arrive when a credible alternative presents itself. All this happened last year and has made barely a dent in the polls which, if anything, are getting better for the Tories

I regret, as someone who was a Labour supporter most of his adult life, that credible alternative is just not there at the moment. Labour is an untenable coalition of strong minded socialists and equally strong minded social liberals. The problem is that the former is an anathema in the South, the latter an anathema in the Midlands and North. Until someone can square that circle the Tories can spectacularly screw up as often as they like.

I don't entirely agree, there is no great enthusiasm for the dull Starmer but he also does not repel voters to vote against him as Corbyn did either.

If the economy goes downhill in the next few years then while a Labour majority remains unlikely a PM Starmer propped up by LD gains in the South, Labour gains in London and part of the Red Wall and the SNP remains possible

I accept that that is possible but vanishingly unlikely I think.

Like someone discovering dark matter anytime soon...

Rubbish. A little bit of transmutation success will allow us to not just have gold from lead, but we'll be able to contact ghosts and they're sure to tell us about Dark Matter. I guess perhaps you don't own the correct robes to understand modern physics!

I never did understand physics. I wonder at the complexity of the universe but don't understand warping spacetime nor schroedingers cat. I don't really get supermassive black holes but know that the universe is expanding ever faster but into what ?

What absolutely do know that barring a miracle Labour are likely to remain out if office until they can find someone to square the circle between the two sides of the party that are at war with each other and until they lose the anti semitic label attached to the party.

I think a few light years should sort it all out.

We have lost the antisemitic label. It went with Corbyn. Both the genuine and the phony charges were to do with him and his leadership.

And look, I'm sorry, but there's no room on this board for somebody who doesn't understand the warping of spacetime. It's a de minimus.

And as for using light-year as a unit of time, not distance, well...
The trick is to remember that a light-year is 0.307 of a parsec. Noone would think that a parsec was a unit of time.

They would if you wrote it in full

Only for those who don't realise that the second in "parallax second" is an angle rather than a duration.

Go on. There's more needed.

Now you have me: please explain what I have missed?
(Like all teachers I'm very good at being confident in my assertions, but I hope I know my limits).

Edit: Unless what you meant was I should have said "parallax arcsecond"?

You concluded with an angle. Somehow you need to transform that into a length in space.

One parsec is the distance at which a star will have a parallax angle (over six months) of one arcsecond. Think of it as a right angled triangle where the angle is 1", the opposite side is one AU and the adjacent side is one parsec.

Oh I remember this well. In the textbooks the angle is normally labelled as p. Is this why it is called parsec? a conflation of p arcsecond? Before anyone asks, AU stands for Astronomical Unit, the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.

(a retired teacher)

Just to confuse things the symbol for the parallax angle is sometime given as π.

So - on the Isle of Man, the bikes race against the parallax angle?

I'd always wondered....

OR (if you really mean it)

That is the Greek letter pi.

IshmaelZ said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

rcs1000 said:

TimT said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Not to go all Leon, but I notice the "it escaped from the lab" narrative is really building. Many major media outlets who previously played it down, I think partly because of Trump Derangement Syndrome, are now suddenly entertaining the idea that it might well be the case.

Once again proving that Trump was not always wrong, particularly when it comes to diagnosing problems. Pretty close to 100% wrong when it comes to proposed solutions, and disastrously wrong in ruining US relationships. But not always wrong on diagnostics.

Your view - IIRC - is that the escaped from the lab theory is possible, but not the likeliest scenario. Am I correct in thinking that?

Would it be fair to say that there are two versions of the lab escape scenario?
In the weak one they has collected it from the wild and it escaped in the lab due to poor bio-security.
In the strong one it was something they had been altering and so is stronger than the wild version.

It seems to me that the first version is highly likely (and most of the arguments I have seen against the lab theory seem to argue against the strong version, ignoring the weak one).

The escaped version is virulent as fuck, so why didn't it propagate from the non biosecure spot from which it was collected rather than the lab which at least made gestures towards biosecurity, if it wasn't altered by the lab? Isn't it more likely that it acquired extra virulence in a lab whose reason for existing was to make viruses more virulent?

TimT said:

DayTripper said:

Cookie said:

northern_monkey said:

Floater said:

Just back from walking the dog.

Clear blue sky, cricket being played, people sitting in the park in small groups

Who would have thought a little slice of normalcy would lift the spirits that much.

I don’t mean to have a pop at you, dear Floater, so please don’t take this personally, you are merely the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I hate ‘normalcy’. What an ugly word. I assume it’s an Americanism. Surely it should be ‘normality’.

There, I’ve said it.

And when did Americans start pronouncing ‘route’ to rhyme with ‘rout’? Chuck Berry didn’t sing about Rout 66.

Sorry.

Unfortunately, normalcy is one of those anachronisms which long ago fell out of English English but continued in America. Probably a suitably pedantic linguist could point to examples in Shakespeare or Dickens.
But yes, clunky and awful and much inferior to normality.

I hate "normalcy" too. We don't say "realcy", or "formalcy" do we?

I hated 'normalcy' when I came across it in a Yemeni academic paper in the early 80s, but have grown to accept it - and even use it myself.

Black_Rook said:

rottenborough said:

Owen Jones Rose
@OwenJones84
·
7h
The Labour leadership shutting down the community organising unit - which was crucial to the party's future - sums it up: petty, vindictive, lacking in any ideas or vision, and incapable of offering anything other than collapsing polling numbers.



I suspect the actual reason is the party is skint.

Doesn't have the large donors that Blair used to attract. Doesn't have the small donors that Corbyn used to attract. Labour looks like a losing proposition and it inspires no enthusiasm. Why would people give it money?