Now a quarantine exemption plan for toffs – the rest of us will have to suffer – politicalbetting.co

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

eek said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

Knowing a lot of 18 and 19/20 year olds, all of them have been worn down by the relentless drip, drip drip of lockdown, exam results by random number generator, work options....

S'ok - Robert thinks they are a hardy lot and IIRC, @Ishmael_Z pointed out that children went through worse in WWII.

So we're fine.

I'm sure they've been worn down by lockdown.

But I'm equally sure that graduation ceremonies are one thing they'd happily miss.

Apart from your own experience I seriously have no idea on what basis you could assert that for the nation's children. And your own experience is not relevant because you hadn't gone through 15 months of a global pandemic.

So soz but I'm going to have to ignore your assertion.

Children need as much normality as possible and the end of school/uni years ceremonies and activities are a vital part of that.

Children also need:
- end of term discos
- residentials
- school trips
- birthday parties
- sleepovers

Basically, they need to live. Their lives need highlights, colour. They need to spend time with people who aren't their parents. Putting all this on hold for three weeks in March 2020 was disappointing but seemed forgiveable given the circumstances and the unknowns. Still being in this half-life 15 months later now we are basically out the other side is a tad vexing. It's difficult to see whose benefit this is for.

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

"COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD" eh?

And shouting. Hmm, I think this discussion is moving in my direction.

And again, the graduation ceremonies, which you may or may not have enjoyed are absolutely an "ESSENTIAL RIGHT [sic] OF PASSAGE" for children. As is all the end of school/uni activities. I said at the beginning "End of term activities". Including graduation which formally marks the end of the era of schooling or uni.

You are simply wrong on this and quite why on the one hand you say lockdown has had an impact and on the other you are unable to see that a critical component of lockdown people are cheering at goodness only knows. I can only imagine something happened at your graduation that was unpleasant otherwise your response is irrational.

I apologise for shouting and calling you names.

I just remember the utter misery - both as a parent and a child - of sitting through assemblies - particularly ones where people go up to the front to be presented with a worthless bit of paper. Every time I've thought "this is two hours of my life, two hours of utter tedium, I will never get back."

Tony Blair, fwiw, agrees with me. He never actually turned up to graduate from Oxford, and therefore is technically not a graduate.

As my edit says not to worry at all about the shouting - it's all part of PB.

I still disagree, that said. In normal times I would have scooped my own eyes out with a soup spoon to avoid going to speech days, graduation ceremonies, etc. Because they were a bore compared with everything else going on. I don't think my sister ever "graduated" from Oxford either.

But now look at everything else going on. They are a beacon of normality and socialisation, which I believe children desperately need right now.

Exclusive: Camera ‘switched to catch Matt Hancock’ https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/camera-switched-catch-matt-hancock-whitehall-insiders-b943178.html

Cookie said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

eek said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

Knowing a lot of 18 and 19/20 year olds, all of them have been worn down by the relentless drip, drip drip of lockdown, exam results by random number generator, work options....

S'ok - Robert thinks they are a hardy lot and IIRC, @Ishmael_Z pointed out that children went through worse in WWII.

So we're fine.

I'm sure they've been worn down by lockdown.

But I'm equally sure that graduation ceremonies are one thing they'd happily miss.

Apart from your own experience I seriously have no idea on what basis you could assert that for the nation's children. And your own experience is not relevant because you hadn't gone through 15 months of a global pandemic.

So soz but I'm going to have to ignore your assertion.

Children need as much normality as possible and the end of school/uni years ceremonies and activities are a vital part of that.

Children also need:
- end of term discos
- residentials
- school trips
- birthday parties
- sleepovers

Basically, they need to live. Their lives need highlights, colour. They need to spend time with people who aren't their parents. Putting all this on hold for three weeks in March 2020 was disappointing but seemed forgiveable given the circumstances and the unknowns. Still being in this half-life 15 months later now we are basically out the other side is a tad vexing. It's difficult to see whose benefit this is for.

100% agree.

Some loon on WatO saying long covid..can't be sure..variants..

We'll be here for ever if that thinking takes hold.

Richard_Nabavi said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

bigjohnowls said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

In a very strong field, Linked In is the worst, the very, very worst, website known to man. It is quite spectacularly bad - for example, they send out emails saying X wants to connect with you: then when you go on to the website, you can't find the invitation from X but you get screenfuls of utter garbage of zero interest to anyone. It even makes Microsoft Teams look well-designed, something you would have thought was impossible.

I stopped using Linkedin years ago and hate Teams with a passion. Zoom rools OK

LinkedIn and Teams are bad for the same reason - they are both trying to be some kind of all-purpose Facebook/iOs substitute, so they've piled in masses of garbage, rather than actually doing what you want them to do - in the case of Teams, video conferences, not 'creating channels' or integrating apps or saving files or running a Wiki.

As for Zoom, why the hell did their designers think it was a good idea to make it impossible to set up and test your video and sound before you start the meeting? (Teams has the same 'feature', except it's easy to get round by starting it and left-clicking on the icon in the taskbar).

Yours, frustrated of Sussex.

You can on Zoom....Click your profile picture, then click Settings.....Video....

No, you just get 'Join a Meeting' or 'Sign in'. If you've received an invitation and don't have an account - which applies to most people - you can't access the settings until you click 'Join a Meeting'. That is completely insane.

You can make the free account by logging in with Google. It gives you all of the settings options.

Obviously I couldn’t give a fuck about the DUP, although it’s objectively bad for the Union on several levels.

The DUP likely originally hoped Brexit would lead to a restoration of a hard border with Ireland and had the whole UK gone to No Deal that is what would have happened. Although on that I think they were wrong, a hard border with Ireland would have led to greater demands for Irish unity than is the case now

The DUP are possibly looking into a meltdown as they have essentially had all their cake and eaten it with the 2017 -19 deals which have now come to fruition.... The UUP possibly scent blood and further pressure from loyalists may see DUP support fragment away - the new leader of UUP Doug Beattie is not to be underestimated, the DUP may paradoxically be the biggest losers from BREXIT in NI

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Eagles, that's useful (on LI spammery). Been thinking of looking for more work/making a profile.

Freelance writer, incidentally, for anyone after such.

You should definitely have a profile. It is a good shop window for services such as yours, but you need to work at it. If you write content for people it would be good to keep posting articles or examples, particularly if they have business interest and then connect like crazy with people that might want to use your services

Cookie said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

eek said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

Knowing a lot of 18 and 19/20 year olds, all of them have been worn down by the relentless drip, drip drip of lockdown, exam results by random number generator, work options....

S'ok - Robert thinks they are a hardy lot and IIRC, @Ishmael_Z pointed out that children went through worse in WWII.

So we're fine.

I'm sure they've been worn down by lockdown.

But I'm equally sure that graduation ceremonies are one thing they'd happily miss.

Apart from your own experience I seriously have no idea on what basis you could assert that for the nation's children. And your own experience is not relevant because you hadn't gone through 15 months of a global pandemic.

So soz but I'm going to have to ignore your assertion.

Children need as much normality as possible and the end of school/uni years ceremonies and activities are a vital part of that.

Children also need:
- end of term discos
- residentials
- school trips
- birthday parties
- sleepovers

Basically, they need to live. Their lives need highlights, colour. They need to spend time with people who aren't their parents. Putting all this on hold for three weeks in March 2020 was disappointing but seemed forgiveable given the circumstances and the unknowns. Still being in this half-life 15 months later now we are basically out the other side is a tad vexing. It's difficult to see whose benefit this is for.

Johnson's decision to suspend education in January was a catastrophe of the first order.

Gardenwalker said:

rcs1000 said:

Gardenwalker said:

rcs1000 said:

Gardenwalker said:

geoffw said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

In a very strong field, Linked In is the worst, the very, very worst, website known to man. It is quite spectacularly bad - for example, they send out emails saying X wants to connect with you: then when you go on to the website, you can't find the invitation from X but you get screenfuls of utter garbage of zero interest to anyone. It even makes Microsoft Teams look well-designed, something you would have thought was impossible.

Why hasn't a decent competitor emerged to cater for this market? Is there some kind of natural monopoly or barrier to entry?

Yes, it’s a natural monopoly.

And given the way it supports the entire labour market, it should be regulated.

And yes, it’s got increasingly badly designed and unfocused in recent years.

It isn't a natural monopoly. There is definitely a niche for a business directory and contact management product that is not LinkedIn. It could integrate a mobile app with tap to share business cards. It also do a great job of verifying peoples histories.

There's a huge opportunity to do something really cool.

I prefer the other answer which suggested that it is a natural monopoly by virtue of the network effects acting as a barrier to entry to competitors.

See also Google, Facebook, and probably Amazon within appropriate definitions of the retail market.

The new entrant you described would have to build its network from scratch, or piggyback in another’s - ie Google or Facebook.

It's amazing how many natural monopolies turned out not to be, though.

Internet Explorer had a monopoly due to being installed by default on people's computers... until Chrome came along.

Windows was a monopoly... and now it's not.

Etc.

I have some sympathy with this, but the returns on capital are simply insane, have been for a full generation, and are getting insaner.

Google et al exist because our society allows them to; not the other way round.

One of my (actual in-person) customer meetings last week. They brought their IT manager in to talk systems, I showed him some stuff and then he said "is that a Chromebook???"

I think that there is a whole industry of IT managers, systems providers, software engineers who were raised on and make their living off trying to make things work on Windows. It is a happy synergy - Microsoft make money developing shit software full of holes and a client industry makes money filling the holes.

When someone opts out they don't like it.

Lockdown education anecdote:

My son is seven (today, actually...) and probably missed seven months of school. Teaching him was hard, but in some ways I'm glad I did it: I learnt a great deal about teaching, what he knew, and how he wanted to work. Thankfully, I know just about enough about the three R's to teach a six-year old, and he has thrived.

However, he is an only child, and socially he has suffered. He missed his friends, and he missed playing with other kids. He also gained a little weight during the last lockdown, despite daily exercise - showing how much running around he must do at school. Fortunately he has now burnt that off. (I blame the winter weather.)

But we were lucky. I know one kid who was allowed into school with the children of key workers, as his mum (who is lovely) freely admits to being incapable of teaching him. I know another girl who has problems and was behind before lockdown. Now her school says she is two years behind. At age seven. The little 'un met up with her this weekend, and it is obvious that she's much more backward socially than she used to be. We've known her since she was a baby, and it's been obvious since she was two or three that she education issues - but they've never really been investigated. Lockdown's been really bad for her.

So lockdown hasn't been too bad for our son. He is seven, and will recover. But I'm all too aware that for other kids his age it's been very bad, and many older kids will not have time to recover.

TOPPING said:

Cookie said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

eek said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

Knowing a lot of 18 and 19/20 year olds, all of them have been worn down by the relentless drip, drip drip of lockdown, exam results by random number generator, work options....

S'ok - Robert thinks they are a hardy lot and IIRC, @Ishmael_Z pointed out that children went through worse in WWII.

So we're fine.

I'm sure they've been worn down by lockdown.

But I'm equally sure that graduation ceremonies are one thing they'd happily miss.

Apart from your own experience I seriously have no idea on what basis you could assert that for the nation's children. And your own experience is not relevant because you hadn't gone through 15 months of a global pandemic.

So soz but I'm going to have to ignore your assertion.

Children need as much normality as possible and the end of school/uni years ceremonies and activities are a vital part of that.

Children also need:
- end of term discos
- residentials
- school trips
- birthday parties
- sleepovers

Basically, they need to live. Their lives need highlights, colour. They need to spend time with people who aren't their parents. Putting all this on hold for three weeks in March 2020 was disappointing but seemed forgiveable given the circumstances and the unknowns. Still being in this half-life 15 months later now we are basically out the other side is a tad vexing. It's difficult to see whose benefit this is for.

100% agree.

Some loon on WatO saying long covid..can't be sure..variants..

We'll be here for ever if that thinking takes hold.

Jonathan Ashworth was making exactly the same vague points for the Labour Party yesterday.
The government has not had a good pandemic. And at every turn the Labour Party seems to have been at pains to demonstrate why it would have been worse.

RochdalePioneers said:

One of my (actual in-person) customer meetings last week. They brought their IT manager in to talk systems, I showed him some stuff and then he said "is that a Chromebook???"

I think that there is a whole industry of IT managers, systems providers, software engineers who were raised on and make their living off trying to make things work on Windows. It is a happy synergy - Microsoft make money developing shit software full of holes and a client industry makes money filling the holes.

When someone opts out they don't like it.

With Azure it's even worse.

Companies that used to have resilient on-prem services migrated them all to Azure.

What happens if we can't get to Azure for any period? Can we recover somewhere else?

Ummm, no...

Fenman said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

"COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD" eh?

And shouting. Hmm, I think this discussion is moving in my direction.

And again, the graduation ceremonies, which you may or may not have enjoyed are absolutely an "ESSENTIAL RIGHT [sic] OF PASSAGE" for children. As is all the end of school/uni activities. I said at the beginning "End of term activities". Including graduation which formally marks the end of the era of schooling or uni.

You are simply wrong on this and quite why on the one hand you say lockdown has had an impact and on the other you are unable to see that a critical component of lockdown people are cheering at goodness only knows. I can only imagine something happened at your graduation that was unpleasant otherwise your response is irrational.

I apologise for shouting and calling you names.

I just remember the utter misery - both as a parent and a child - of sitting through assemblies - particularly ones where people go up to the front to be presented with a worthless bit of paper. Every time I've thought "this is two hours of my life, two hours of utter tedium, I will never get back."

Tony Blair, fwiw, agrees with me. He never actually turned up to graduate from Oxford, and therefore is technically not a graduate.

I've five, my wife and children two each. None of us have ever been to a graduation.

At the risk of labouring the point, did any of these graduations occur after 15 months of disrupted life when you were prevented by law from associating with your friends or from going to the shops or away for a weekend or...or...

Can you say that you missed your graduations in anything like similar circumstances to the people missing their graduations today?

StuartDickson said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

High school graduation… in England?!?

It’s gone full circle now. You lot are de facto the 51st state.

Including "Proms" that teenagers seem obliged to attend these days for fear of life-long social exclusion.

swing_voter said:

'Obviously I couldn’t give a fuck about the DUP, although it’s objectively bad for the Union on several levels.

The DUP likely originally hoped Brexit would lead to a restoration of a hard border with Ireland and had the whole UK gone to No Deal that is what would have happened. Although on that I think they were wrong, a hard border with Ireland would have led to greater demands for Irish unity than is the case now

The DUP are possibly looking into a meltdown as they have essentially had all their cake and eaten it with the 2017 -19 deals which have now come to fruition.... The UUP possibly scent blood and further pressure from loyalists may see DUP support fragment away - the new leader of UUP Doug Beattie is not to be underestimated, the DUP may paradoxically be the biggest losers from BREXIT in NI'

Under Poots that was certainly the risk, Donaldson will likely steady the ship as an experienced hand.

However the general point is correct, the DUP have been leaking moderates to the UUP and hardliners to Traditional Unionist Voice

Charles said:

rcs1000 said:

Charles said:

Floater said:

Utterly stupid idea - what idiot came up with that?

What counts as "significant economic benefit?

Why would the other parties want to meet with you anyway - I would refuse a face to face in those circumstances

Against that I has a US client who is looking to invest £50m in the UK care homes sector. Really needs to be here in person to iron out the last details with his counterpart. But he’s not been able to come despite being double vaxxed so the project has drifted.

Why can't he go to the UK? He'll have five days of doing Zoom meetings, which - if he lands on Friday morning - means he'll be able to do in person the following Weds.

That's a lot better than for me and the US. I simply can't enter the US from the UK (despite being double vaccinated) without going via Canada or Mexico for two weeks.

He’d be bouncing off the hotel room wall after about 40 minutes…

Fair enough

Personally (and I am of course completely biased), I think the rule for the double vaccinated are too tough. I also resent the fact that you can travel freely between the US and the UK and I cannot.

Which is probably also adding to my irritation levels this morning.

Currant Bun claim the England team is..

Pickford
Trippier
Walker
Stones
Maguire
Shaw
Philips
Rice
Saka
Sterling
Kane.

No Mount, no Foden, no Grealish....shakes head. Park that bus. How the hell do England create any chances with a two in midfield, both of known are really known for their defensive qualities.

TOPPING said:

Fenman said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

"COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD" eh?

And shouting. Hmm, I think this discussion is moving in my direction.

And again, the graduation ceremonies, which you may or may not have enjoyed are absolutely an "ESSENTIAL RIGHT [sic] OF PASSAGE" for children. As is all the end of school/uni activities. I said at the beginning "End of term activities". Including graduation which formally marks the end of the era of schooling or uni.

You are simply wrong on this and quite why on the one hand you say lockdown has had an impact and on the other you are unable to see that a critical component of lockdown people are cheering at goodness only knows. I can only imagine something happened at your graduation that was unpleasant otherwise your response is irrational.

I apologise for shouting and calling you names.

I just remember the utter misery - both as a parent and a child - of sitting through assemblies - particularly ones where people go up to the front to be presented with a worthless bit of paper. Every time I've thought "this is two hours of my life, two hours of utter tedium, I will never get back."

Tony Blair, fwiw, agrees with me. He never actually turned up to graduate from Oxford, and therefore is technically not a graduate.

I've five, my wife and children two each. None of us have ever been to a graduation.

At the risk of labouring the point, did any of these graduations occur after 15 months of disrupted life when you were prevented by law from associating with your friends or from going to the shops or away for a weekend or...or...

Can you say that you missed your graduations in anything like similar circumstances to the people missing their graduations today?

I think a graduation gathering is rather more of a social occasion than listening to people make speeches and collect pieces of paper.

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

Fenman said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

"COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD" eh?

And shouting. Hmm, I think this discussion is moving in my direction.

And again, the graduation ceremonies, which you may or may not have enjoyed are absolutely an "ESSENTIAL RIGHT [sic] OF PASSAGE" for children. As is all the end of school/uni activities. I said at the beginning "End of term activities". Including graduation which formally marks the end of the era of schooling or uni.

You are simply wrong on this and quite why on the one hand you say lockdown has had an impact and on the other you are unable to see that a critical component of lockdown people are cheering at goodness only knows. I can only imagine something happened at your graduation that was unpleasant otherwise your response is irrational.

I apologise for shouting and calling you names.

I just remember the utter misery - both as a parent and a child - of sitting through assemblies - particularly ones where people go up to the front to be presented with a worthless bit of paper. Every time I've thought "this is two hours of my life, two hours of utter tedium, I will never get back."

Tony Blair, fwiw, agrees with me. He never actually turned up to graduate from Oxford, and therefore is technically not a graduate.

I've five, my wife and children two each. None of us have ever been to a graduation.

At the risk of labouring the point, did any of these graduations occur after 15 months of disrupted life when you were prevented by law from associating with your friends or from going to the shops or away for a weekend or...or...

Can you say that you missed your graduations in anything like similar circumstances to the people missing their graduations today?

I think a graduation gathering is rather more of a social occasion than listening to people make speeches and collect pieces of paper.

SO DO I!!!

(first coffee down the hatch I presume?)

Republic of Ireland to use indoor hospitality vaccine pass

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57649546

FrancisUrquhart said:

Currant Bun claim the England team is..

Pickford
Trippier
Walker
Stones
Maguire
Shaw
Philips
Rice
Saka
Sterling
Kane.

No Mount, no Foden, no Grealish....shakes head. Park that bus. How the hell do England create any chances with a two in midfield, both of known are really known for their defensive qualities.

Maguire will hoof it straight to Kane and he'll try and win a free kick.

Edit: After 50 sideways passes, obvs

rcs1000 said:

Charles said:

rcs1000 said:

Charles said:

Floater said:

Utterly stupid idea - what idiot came up with that?

What counts as "significant economic benefit?

Why would the other parties want to meet with you anyway - I would refuse a face to face in those circumstances

Against that I has a US client who is looking to invest £50m in the UK care homes sector. Really needs to be here in person to iron out the last details with his counterpart. But he’s not been able to come despite being double vaxxed so the project has drifted.

Why can't he go to the UK? He'll have five days of doing Zoom meetings, which - if he lands on Friday morning - means he'll be able to do in person the following Weds.

That's a lot better than for me and the US. I simply can't enter the US from the UK (despite being double vaccinated) without going via Canada or Mexico for two weeks.

He’d be bouncing off the hotel room wall after about 40 minutes…

Fair enough

Personally (and I am of course completely biased), I think the rule for the double vaccinated are too tough. I also resent the fact that you can travel freely between the US and the UK and I cannot.

Which is probably also adding to my irritation levels this morning.

I haven’t seen my family since May!

And I have to quarantine on my return

Johnny Bairstow is desperate for this match to finish before the England v. Germany match.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Scott_xP said:

Exclusive: Camera ‘switched to catch Matt Hancock’ https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/camera-switched-catch-matt-hancock-whitehall-insiders-b943178.html

"The camera was originally installed to point towards a glass door and balcony with sweeping views outside his ministerial office, which was considered a security weak point. But somebody turned it around so that it pointed instead to the internal doorway where Mr Hancock was caught kissing and fondling his aide Gina Coladangelo.

An internal investigation is seeking to discover if the camera was moved accidentally during renovations or whether it was repositioned by the leaker to spy on the couple. Insiders are convinced that it was done deliberately."

------

occam's razor.....nobody would know in advance he was going to be snogging his mistress right up against the door, he could easily of done it elsewhere (and probably did).

DJL's razor: strange no-one noticed the balcony camera no longer showed the balcony, which suggests it had been deliberately moved.

Anabobazina said:

My son's primary school has cancelled the Year 6 junior prom and Year 6 pupil-led end of year theatre production, just, er, because, y'know, covid.

The fact that the entire year has been sat next to each other every day, no social distancing, playing sports, and mingling daily seems to have passed them by.

Who exactly benefits from this irrational idiocy?

'er, because, y'know, covid' has become the mantra of the age.

My year 6 daughter's school is better than many in this regard but, so much is being missed. They are doing a Year 6 production but it is going to be videoed and sent out on DVD rather than have parents watch it. To add to my irritation, the subject of the play appears to be the pandemic of 2020/21. From what I can glean it is a particularly state-sanctioned view in which the likes of Sage are the good guys and the heroes are the NHS first, then 'scientists, then anyone else who worked for the public sector, then food delivery workers.

Meanwhile her senior school has cancelled its induction day - where she would have got to meet her new classmates - in later July, er, because, y'know, covid. The assumption seems to be in the state sector that freedom day will not happen. Largely, I think, because they don't want it to. They are addicted to being the good guys in their own story.

eek said:

rcs1000 said:

eek said:

RochdalePioneers said:

Gardenwalker said:

rcs1000 said:

Gardenwalker said:

rcs1000 said:

Gardenwalker said:

geoffw said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

In a very strong field, Linked In is the worst, the very, very worst, website known to man. It is quite spectacularly bad - for example, they send out emails saying X wants to connect with you: then when you go on to the website, you can't find the invitation from X but you get screenfuls of utter garbage of zero interest to anyone. It even makes Microsoft Teams look well-designed, something you would have thought was impossible.

Why hasn't a decent competitor emerged to cater for this market? Is there some kind of natural monopoly or barrier to entry?

Yes, it’s a natural monopoly.

And given the way it supports the entire labour market, it should be regulated.

And yes, it’s got increasingly badly designed and unfocused in recent years.

It isn't a natural monopoly. There is definitely a niche for a business directory and contact management product that is not LinkedIn. It could integrate a mobile app with tap to share business cards. It also do a great job of verifying peoples histories.

There's a huge opportunity to do something really cool.

I prefer the other answer which suggested that it is a natural monopoly by virtue of the network effects acting as a barrier to entry to competitors.

See also Google, Facebook, and probably Amazon within appropriate definitions of the retail market.

The new entrant you described would have to build its network from scratch, or piggyback in another’s - ie Google or Facebook.

It's amazing how many natural monopolies turned out not to be, though.

Internet Explorer had a monopoly due to being installed by default on people's computers... until Chrome came along.

Windows was a monopoly... and now it's not.

Etc.

I have some sympathy with this, but the returns on capital are simply insane, have been for a full generation, and are getting insaner.

Google et al exist because our society allows them to; not the other way round.

One of my (actual in-person) customer meetings last week. They brought their IT manager in to talk systems, I showed him some stuff and then he said "is that a Chromebook???"

I think that there is a whole industry of IT managers, systems providers, software engineers who were raised on and make their living off trying to make things work on Windows. It is a happy synergy - Microsoft make money developing shit software full of holes and a client industry makes money filling the holes.

When someone opts out they don't like it.

Given the choice of Google and Microsoft - I personally would trust the latter way more than the former - to Google everything is a dataset that they will try to make money out of... Oh and be aware that Chromebooks have built in obsolescence dates in the way that Windows and co don't.

As for using the cloud (Azure, GCP, AWS) it offers some benefits but with those benefits come a whole set of cons of which a significant one is money.

At least AWS allows you to have near bare metal virtualisation: it's not hard to move an AWS server to a dedicated one.

Only if you are using EC2's which really are just a virtualised machine with software based networking - the real benefits come from the more specialised areas (even if it's just AWS lambda functions) but by that point you are really stuck in AWS with little way of escaping.

For the stuff I'm currently working on we've gone back to actual hardware - it's 15% of the equivalent AWS price for a equivalent EC2.

There were several clouds that featured real hardware alongside virtual machines, but they disappeared because "the market" massively favoured VMs on AWS and similar. Ironically, the hyperscalers are now moving to offer more-or-less dedicated hardware options.

The number of new doses administered yesterday is 265,276

dixiedean said:

kinabalu said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

"COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD" eh?

And shouting. Hmm, I think this discussion is moving in my direction.

And again, the graduation ceremonies, which you may or may not have enjoyed are absolutely an "ESSENTIAL RIGHT [sic] OF PASSAGE" for children. As is all the end of school/uni activities. I said at the beginning "End of term activities". Including graduation which formally marks the end of the era of schooling or uni.

You are simply wrong on this and quite why on the one hand you say lockdown has had an impact and on the other you are unable to see that a critical component of lockdown people are cheering at goodness only knows. I can only imagine something happened at your graduation that was unpleasant otherwise your response is irrational.

I apologise for shouting and calling you names.

I just remember the utter misery - both as a parent and a child - of sitting through assemblies - particularly ones where people go up to the front to be presented with a worthless bit of paper. Every time I've thought "this is two hours of my life, two hours of utter tedium, I will never get back."

Tony Blair, fwiw, agrees with me. He never actually turned up to graduate from Oxford, and therefore is technically not a graduate.

I skipped mine at Imperial. It was in the Albert Hall but I didn't fancy it.

Me too. Shelling out for a fancy dress costume to sit in a hall for hours while folk droned on didn't appeal somehow.

It's really all about the honorary degrees anyway.

Alphabet_Soup said:

StuartDickson said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

High school graduation… in England?!?

It’s gone full circle now. You lot are de facto the 51st state.

Including "Proms" that teenagers seem obliged to attend these days for fear of life-long social exclusion.

The Americans are forever making us change the words for perfectly well established British traditions. I'm surprised we're not talking about the Euro Soccer championships. There have been end of 6th form "balls" for decades. I remember going to our school's which was the unusually named "Austro-Hungarian Society summer ball" (don't ask), and in some cases they've been called debutante balls or debs, but they seem suddenly to have become high school proms in the last few years.

My children talk about going to the shopping mall (what's wrong with shopping centre or precinct?), and one of my nieces even refers to playing ball games "in the yard" - her large, lawned back garden.

What they now call high school graduation is essentially speech day.

The problem for the DUP is that they have been demanding the end of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

So indeed have the UUP.

But the UK govt has now conceded that the Northern Ireland Protocol is here to stay.

It’s not clear what a coherent Unionist position might be. The only way to “remove” the protocol, short of the Assembly itself voting it down, which ain’t going to happen, is for the UK itself to move much closer to the EU so that much of the need for customs and regulatory checks are obviated.

But this requires the DUP to advocate for a closer trading relationship with the EU than the bare bones negotiated in the TCA, and I doubt they have the intellectual ability to do that.

williamglenn said:

dixiedean said:

kinabalu said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

"COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD" eh?

And shouting. Hmm, I think this discussion is moving in my direction.

And again, the graduation ceremonies, which you may or may not have enjoyed are absolutely an "ESSENTIAL RIGHT [sic] OF PASSAGE" for children. As is all the end of school/uni activities. I said at the beginning "End of term activities". Including graduation which formally marks the end of the era of schooling or uni.

You are simply wrong on this and quite why on the one hand you say lockdown has had an impact and on the other you are unable to see that a critical component of lockdown people are cheering at goodness only knows. I can only imagine something happened at your graduation that was unpleasant otherwise your response is irrational.

I apologise for shouting and calling you names.

I just remember the utter misery - both as a parent and a child - of sitting through assemblies - particularly ones where people go up to the front to be presented with a worthless bit of paper. Every time I've thought "this is two hours of my life, two hours of utter tedium, I will never get back."

Tony Blair, fwiw, agrees with me. He never actually turned up to graduate from Oxford, and therefore is technically not a graduate.

I skipped mine at Imperial. It was in the Albert Hall but I didn't fancy it.

Me too. Shelling out for a fancy dress costume to sit in a hall for hours while folk droned on didn't appeal somehow.

It's really all about the honorary degrees anyway.

Is it true that everyone gets either a first or a 2:1 now? No-one gets a Desmond anymore?

FrancisUrquhart said:

DecrepiterJohnL said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Scott_xP said:

Exclusive: Camera ‘switched to catch Matt Hancock’ https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/camera-switched-catch-matt-hancock-whitehall-insiders-b943178.html

"The camera was originally installed to point towards a glass door and balcony with sweeping views outside his ministerial office, which was considered a security weak point. But somebody turned it around so that it pointed instead to the internal doorway where Mr Hancock was caught kissing and fondling his aide Gina Coladangelo.

An internal investigation is seeking to discover if the camera was moved accidentally during renovations or whether it was repositioned by the leaker to spy on the couple. Insiders are convinced that it was done deliberately."

------

occam's razor.....nobody would know in advance he was going to be snogging his mistress right up against the door, he could easily of done it elsewhere (and probably did).

DJL's razor: strange no-one noticed the balcony camera no longer showed the balcony, which suggests it had been deliberately moved.

You are presuming the bloke in the CCTV control room actually cared about such things.

I think we have found out now that security isn't exactly a top priority, given they use Chinese CCTV cameras....and as I typed this..

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/29/dominic-raab-mobile-number-freely-available-online

Government security procedures are clearly an absolute joke. Although the Guardian overplaying the "what about foreign states getting hold of it"....I mean if they don't know it by other means, they are really crap at spying. You only need to get access to a journalists phone who will have them or have a mole in the phone companies, or basically anybody who ever has to phone government minister.

I gather a lot of mobile phone billing is outsourced offshore. That will tell you (the foreign spy) not only what Raab's phone number is but, far more significantly, who phones him and whom he calls.

I despair of governments of both colours who seem to have no idea what foreign spies want to know. For instance, New Labour wanted to have income tax processed in America. Now we are putting "anonymised" health records up for sale.

And that's without Linkedin (earlier in this thread) and other private companies getting hacked. Or HMG routing Cabinet meetings through China.

JosiasJessop said:

Praise for MS:

I'm tight. I don't like spending money. Therefore for personal use, I prefer to use OpenOffice/LibreOffice - at least since I've not been working and can't get someone else to pay for Office.

But LibreOffice is annoying. During lockdown, when my time was really tight, I stole a few hours to do some of my own work. I created a spreadsheet that was a few hundred rows deep, by five columns. Cells were coloured according to a criteria by hand (no macros).

I saved the work (autosave was on anyway). I wanted to print it out, so I set the page format to landscape, and reduced the point size slightly. It crashes, taking out the autosave and the main save. So I checked I'm running a stable version and not a beta, got an older copy, did the changes, then altered the font size.

It crashed again. I'd found a reproducible bug whilst doing a really basic task. The old me would have written up and submitted a bug report. The new me, pi**ed off at having lost a couple of hours of precious time, just went online and got Office.

And you know what? It works. In fact, it works really well. Yes, it's cost money, but at least I haven't had the experience of it ****** well corrupting my work. It also 'feels' much better than LibreOffice as well - and I've used both extensively.

Sometimes you just want things that work. MS generally does that.

It would be a kindness to report the bug @ https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/ regardless, if you still have the file.

JosiasJessop said:

Praise for MS:

I'm tight. I don't like spending money. Therefore for personal use, I prefer to use OpenOffice/LibreOffice - at least since I've not been working and can't get someone else to pay for Office.

But LibreOffice is annoying. During lockdown, when my time was really tight, I stole a few hours to do some of my own work. I created a spreadsheet that was a few hundred rows deep, by five columns. Cells were coloured according to a criteria by hand (no macros).

I saved the work (autosave was on anyway). I wanted to print it out, so I set the page format to landscape, and reduced the point size slightly. It crashes, taking out the autosave and the main save. So I checked I'm running a stable version and not a beta, got an older copy, did the changes, then altered the font size.

It crashed again. I'd found a reproducible bug whilst doing a really basic task. The old me would have written up and submitted a bug report. The new me, pi**ed off at having lost a couple of hours of precious time, just went online and got Office.

And you know what? It works. In fact, it works really well. Yes, it's cost money, but at least I haven't had the experience of it ****** well corrupting my work. It also 'feels' much better than LibreOffice as well - and I've used both extensively.

Sometimes you just want things that work. MS generally does that.

That's true. MS Office just works. Be careful to stay within the data limits, though, or you'll find yourself silently truncating the national Covid incidence data.

Fenman said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

"COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD" eh?

And shouting. Hmm, I think this discussion is moving in my direction.

And again, the graduation ceremonies, which you may or may not have enjoyed are absolutely an "ESSENTIAL RIGHT [sic] OF PASSAGE" for children. As is all the end of school/uni activities. I said at the beginning "End of term activities". Including graduation which formally marks the end of the era of schooling or uni.

You are simply wrong on this and quite why on the one hand you say lockdown has had an impact and on the other you are unable to see that a critical component of lockdown people are cheering at goodness only knows. I can only imagine something happened at your graduation that was unpleasant otherwise your response is irrational.

I apologise for shouting and calling you names.

I just remember the utter misery - both as a parent and a child - of sitting through assemblies - particularly ones where people go up to the front to be presented with a worthless bit of paper. Every time I've thought "this is two hours of my life, two hours of utter tedium, I will never get back."

Tony Blair, fwiw, agrees with me. He never actually turned up to graduate from Oxford, and therefore is technically not a graduate.

I've five, my wife and children two each. None of us have ever been to a graduation.

Didn't bother with BSc, but the MBA was a party not to be missed!

England collapse underway....

Nigel_Foremain said:

williamglenn said:

dixiedean said:

kinabalu said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

"COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD" eh?

And shouting. Hmm, I think this discussion is moving in my direction.

And again, the graduation ceremonies, which you may or may not have enjoyed are absolutely an "ESSENTIAL RIGHT [sic] OF PASSAGE" for children. As is all the end of school/uni activities. I said at the beginning "End of term activities". Including graduation which formally marks the end of the era of schooling or uni.

You are simply wrong on this and quite why on the one hand you say lockdown has had an impact and on the other you are unable to see that a critical component of lockdown people are cheering at goodness only knows. I can only imagine something happened at your graduation that was unpleasant otherwise your response is irrational.

I apologise for shouting and calling you names.

I just remember the utter misery - both as a parent and a child - of sitting through assemblies - particularly ones where people go up to the front to be presented with a worthless bit of paper. Every time I've thought "this is two hours of my life, two hours of utter tedium, I will never get back."

Tony Blair, fwiw, agrees with me. He never actually turned up to graduate from Oxford, and therefore is technically not a graduate.

I skipped mine at Imperial. It was in the Albert Hall but I didn't fancy it.

Me too. Shelling out for a fancy dress costume to sit in a hall for hours while folk droned on didn't appeal somehow.

It's really all about the honorary degrees anyway.

Is it true that everyone gets either a first or a 2:1 now? No-one gets a Desmond anymore?

95 per cent at Oxford. Hull might have maintained its academic standards.

FrancisUrquhart said:

Just turned on the cricket....was whoever in charge of cutting the wicket drunk? You can see where they cut the strip and it bends all over the place.

You're not wrong - that looks distinctly like the standard of cutting i used to do in my groundsmen stints!

DecrepiterJohnL said:

Nigel_Foremain said:

williamglenn said:

dixiedean said:

kinabalu said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

"COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD" eh?

And shouting. Hmm, I think this discussion is moving in my direction.

And again, the graduation ceremonies, which you may or may not have enjoyed are absolutely an "ESSENTIAL RIGHT [sic] OF PASSAGE" for children. As is all the end of school/uni activities. I said at the beginning "End of term activities". Including graduation which formally marks the end of the era of schooling or uni.

You are simply wrong on this and quite why on the one hand you say lockdown has had an impact and on the other you are unable to see that a critical component of lockdown people are cheering at goodness only knows. I can only imagine something happened at your graduation that was unpleasant otherwise your response is irrational.

I apologise for shouting and calling you names.

I just remember the utter misery - both as a parent and a child - of sitting through assemblies - particularly ones where people go up to the front to be presented with a worthless bit of paper. Every time I've thought "this is two hours of my life, two hours of utter tedium, I will never get back."

Tony Blair, fwiw, agrees with me. He never actually turned up to graduate from Oxford, and therefore is technically not a graduate.

I skipped mine at Imperial. It was in the Albert Hall but I didn't fancy it.

Me too. Shelling out for a fancy dress costume to sit in a hall for hours while folk droned on didn't appeal somehow.

It's really all about the honorary degrees anyway.

Is it true that everyone gets either a first or a 2:1 now? No-one gets a Desmond anymore?

95 per cent at Oxford. Hull might have maintained its academic standards.

Hull, looks like they might have improved them a bit, they have managed to crack the top 75 in the country....

JosiasJessop said:

Praise for MS:

I'm tight. I don't like spending money. Therefore for personal use, I prefer to use OpenOffice/LibreOffice - at least since I've not been working and can't get someone else to pay for Office.

But LibreOffice is annoying. During lockdown, when my time was really tight, I stole a few hours to do some of my own work. I created a spreadsheet that was a few hundred rows deep, by five columns. Cells were coloured according to a criteria by hand (no macros).

I saved the work (autosave was on anyway). I wanted to print it out, so I set the page format to landscape, and reduced the point size slightly. It crashes, taking out the autosave and the main save. So I checked I'm running a stable version and not a beta, got an older copy, did the changes, then altered the font size.

It crashed again. I'd found a reproducible bug whilst doing a really basic task. The old me would have written up and submitted a bug report. The new me, pi**ed off at having lost a couple of hours of precious time, just went online and got Office.

And you know what? It works. In fact, it works really well. Yes, it's cost money, but at least I haven't had the experience of it ****** well corrupting my work. It also 'feels' much better than LibreOffice as well - and I've used both extensively.

Sometimes you just want things that work. MS generally does that.

Excel is the big beast of MS.

Excel just works and is easily the best version of the software out there in my experience - and to be frank its all that most businesses really, really care about. The rest of Office is not that special, but Excel is the gold standard.

Gardenwalker said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

The problem for the DUP is that they have been demanding the end of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

So indeed have the UUP.

But the UK govt has now conceded that the Northern Ireland Protocol is here to stay.

Why is that a problem? It gives unionism a long-term political raison d'être.

I suppose that could be true, but it’s a futile endeavour and therefore a road to irrelevance for unionists.

They also have no answer to the question, “What replaces the Northern Ireland protocol”?

It's only futile if you think Brexit will inevitably lead to the relative economic decline of GB. If this doesn't happen then it makes unionists more relevant than they've been for a long time.

NS article by Simon Fletcher on the topic which grips a nation - What Labour Need To Do.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2021/06/keir-starmer-s-labour-desperately-needs-stand-something

LostPassword said:

On the other hand you have lots of companies with badly maintained and supported on-prem services migrating them to Azure and not losing the entirety of their systems if a single cable breaks.

You can combine the two

Have your globally available Azure auth service dependent on a single on-prem device through express-link, with some kind of bug...

Philip_Thompson said:

JosiasJessop said:

Praise for MS:

I'm tight. I don't like spending money. Therefore for personal use, I prefer to use OpenOffice/LibreOffice - at least since I've not been working and can't get someone else to pay for Office.

But LibreOffice is annoying. During lockdown, when my time was really tight, I stole a few hours to do some of my own work. I created a spreadsheet that was a few hundred rows deep, by five columns. Cells were coloured according to a criteria by hand (no macros).

I saved the work (autosave was on anyway). I wanted to print it out, so I set the page format to landscape, and reduced the point size slightly. It crashes, taking out the autosave and the main save. So I checked I'm running a stable version and not a beta, got an older copy, did the changes, then altered the font size.

It crashed again. I'd found a reproducible bug whilst doing a really basic task. The old me would have written up and submitted a bug report. The new me, pi**ed off at having lost a couple of hours of precious time, just went online and got Office.

And you know what? It works. In fact, it works really well. Yes, it's cost money, but at least I haven't had the experience of it ****** well corrupting my work. It also 'feels' much better than LibreOffice as well - and I've used both extensively.

Sometimes you just want things that work. MS generally does that.

Excel is the big beast of MS.

Excel just works and is easily the best version of the software out there in my experience - and to be frank its all that most businesses really, really care about. The rest of Office is not that special, but Excel is the gold standard.

Everybody knows real men (and women and non-binary people) use Python with Pandas....or perhaps R if you really like to be out there.

Nigel_Foremain said:

williamglenn said:

dixiedean said:

kinabalu said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

rcs1000 said:

TOPPING said:

HYUFD said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

Those undertaking activities with significant economic benefit have always had favourable rules during this pandemic.

Remember the you can meet up with people in a restaurant if it was for this. Or travel, the plebs can't go on holiday, but business people have been able to travel basically unhindered throughout.

Given Freedom day is only 3 weeks away, I am not sure it will make a lot of difference.

I am not sure it will be full Freedom Day, with even Australia restoring lockdown in some states and LA county reimposing a mask wearing request because of the Delta variant I would imagine masks will still be required to be worn in shops and on public transport, the biggest events will still have a capacity limit and quarantine will still be required for visits to red list countries and for the non double vaccinated to amber countries even from the middle of next month.

I think this new government exemption would therefore certainly be very unpopular if executives returned from a red list country without quarantining

How can it be freedom day when it is still mooted that children will be kept from school if there is a positive test in the class. While literally hundreds of thousands of people go to sports events, the pub, etc.

What exactly does no more restrictions mean? It means restrictions the govt decides to keep. Plenty of them. Some idiot on R4 just now saying well children...long covid...can affect them....

Vanishingly small probability of a child suffering from Covid. Otherwise, given that it has ripped through schools and unis these past few weeks, we would be hearing reports of children dying by the bucketload each day. Doesn't seem to be happening.

Isn't freedom day also the end of term?

Friends and bush telegraph tells me that end of term in many instances is being curtailed a matter of weeks early as everyone self-isolates. Whole rite of passage experiences just not happening for tens of thousands of children.

End of term is a rite of passage without which we'd all be scarred?

You and @contrarian seem to have a very low opinion of the mental resilience of the average 18 year old.

End of school or uni year or of school or uni itself absolutely is a critical rite of passage.

And as for the mental resilience of the average 18-yr old, I suggest you listen to some of the news items on the radio in the UK today. Children on anti-depressants = up, children with mental distress = up, children missing on average 115 hours of face to face teaching, children simply going missing from school.

So yes, Robert and great vid on stopping illegal immigrants, btw, but absofuckinglutely yes, childrens' mental health is being fucked with.

Do you have children? Do you remember what it was like to be a child?

Literally the worst time of the entire school year was an enforced assembly while people trooped up to the front.

The bit that was fun was meeting up with your friends outside of school. Which is - ummm - completely unaffected.

(It is also worth remembering that "graduation" is a very modern concept. In the old days, you went for study leave and never came back. Which I guess explains why everyone over the age of about 50 is mentally scarred.)

Robert the instances of damage to children's mental health is being documented today as we speak on just about all news outlets. I won't google it all for you because I'm sure you will be able to do so.

And after a year or several years of school I could take or leave prize giving and speech day and what have you. I'm sure you the same and if it turned out that your May Ball was cancelled well not to worry your internship at GS was about to start. All perfectly charming.

But the last 15 months have been hell for hundreds of thousands of children perhaps not so fortunate as you or me or perhaps just as fortunate. And during this time school has often represented an oasis of normality. And people are being denied as I said a rite of passage that is part of growing up.

You're completely missing my point.

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU REGARDNG THE IMPACT OF LOCKDOWN ON KIDS HEALTH.

I THINK YOU ARE A COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD IF YOU THINK GRADUATION CEREMONIES ARE SOME ESSENTIAL RIGHT OF PASSAGE THAT KIDS ENJOY.

"COMPLETE FUCKING RETARD" eh?

And shouting. Hmm, I think this discussion is moving in my direction.

And again, the graduation ceremonies, which you may or may not have enjoyed are absolutely an "ESSENTIAL RIGHT [sic] OF PASSAGE" for children. As is all the end of school/uni activities. I said at the beginning "End of term activities". Including graduation which formally marks the end of the era of schooling or uni.

You are simply wrong on this and quite why on the one hand you say lockdown has had an impact and on the other you are unable to see that a critical component of lockdown people are cheering at goodness only knows. I can only imagine something happened at your graduation that was unpleasant otherwise your response is irrational.

I apologise for shouting and calling you names.

I just remember the utter misery - both as a parent and a child - of sitting through assemblies - particularly ones where people go up to the front to be presented with a worthless bit of paper. Every time I've thought "this is two hours of my life, two hours of utter tedium, I will never get back."

Tony Blair, fwiw, agrees with me. He never actually turned up to graduate from Oxford, and therefore is technically not a graduate.

I skipped mine at Imperial. It was in the Albert Hall but I didn't fancy it.

Me too. Shelling out for a fancy dress costume to sit in a hall for hours while folk droned on didn't appeal somehow.

It's really all about the honorary degrees anyway.

Is it true that everyone gets either a first or a 2:1 now? No-one gets a Desmond anymore?

Not quite true, but the are arguably far too many getting firsts and 2:1's. having been involved for the last 10 years or so, its not hard to see why. Students on my course spend ages accumulating good grades in course work, where they can dedicate 5 or 10 times the amount of time we expect them too, and this makes up for generally lower marks in set piece exams. We reference performance back to previous years, but its easy to have a drift up of 1 or 2 % a year translate into many more students getting the top two grades. In many ways the ranking as a cohort is a better system, but I would perhaps retain the grade and include where the student came in their cohort.

Of interest in Pharmacy is that most students take an assessment in 3rd year that is external to the Universities. This is a national competition where students are ranked top to bottom across the piece in order to allocate pre-registration training places. The idea is that the highest ranked gets to choose their first pick and so on. Very revealing for comparing different uni's.

None of the Mac users want to big up Pages or Numbers?

[ducks]

Pulpstar said:

FrancisUrquhart said:

The number of new doses administered yesterday is 265,276

The simple "day gap" has moved down to 73 days now though. That assumes 100% return which won't be the case. The long crawl to ~ 90% by ONS vaccinated begins.

A month or so ago, IIRC the vaccine minister sead that 94.5% or 95.4% (I cant recall which) of people who had had there first jab where terming up for the second, at the right time, it may change a bit since then, but probably not a lot.

I think there is a 2 day delay with the Vaccine numbers so todays numbers refer to Sunday.

I did predict a few days ago that next weekend or sooner we would run out of people to Vaccinate, or more prissily that it would drop to a trical. the 30-34 year olds stopped coming, or more accurately dropped to a trickle whence 60% of them had been jabbed. The 18-24 year olds are just a few days from that level now.

Gardenwalker said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

williamglenn said:

Gardenwalker said:

The problem for the DUP is that they have been demanding the end of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

So indeed have the UUP.

But the UK govt has now conceded that the Northern Ireland Protocol is here to stay.

Why is that a problem? It gives unionism a long-term political raison d'être.

I suppose that could be true, but it’s a futile endeavour and therefore a road to irrelevance for unionists.

They also have no answer to the question, “What replaces the Northern Ireland protocol”?

It's only futile if you think Brexit will inevitably lead to the relative economic decline of GB. If this doesn't happen then it makes unionists more relevant than they've been for a long time.

No, it’s futile because the Unionists will not and cannot muster a majority in the Assembly to scrap the Protocol.

Has nothing to do with the success or otherwise of a Brexit.

The relative decline has already started anyway; see the IMF’s latest assessment of U.K. GDP.

The IMF is predicting that the UK will recover faster than the Eurozone. You don't know how the relative economic position will look in a few years' time. A lot of people's credibility depends on the UK being seen to fail, but there's no guarantee this will happen.