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Opinium: Apart from vaccines more think LAB would be doing better – politicalbetting.com

24

Comments

  • Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Politics For All
    @PoliticsForAlI
    NEW: Forcing GPs to do more face-to-face appointments is ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’, the head of the British Medical Association has said

    Via @Telegraph
    7:30 PM · Oct 17, 2021"

    Let me get this straight. Asking GPs to do the work they were doing before Covid struck is "harassment" and "discrimination"?
    Not quite. Here is what the BMA boss tweeted and that the Telegraph is responding to.

    No other part of NHS is subject to access league tables blaming them for workforce shortages, publicly shaming with patient feedback texts, & CQC hit squads blaming them for failing. If general practice was an employee, it would claim harassment, discrimination, victimisation
    https://twitter.com/CNagpaul/status/1449667564653748225
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    The thing is that going to Tesco Metro and back is 25 minutes of your time. That's 25 minutes of labour that you were previously expending, that someone else will have to to do, and they will have to be appropriately compensated.
    Not if they are delivering to a bunch of other people on the same route.
    Good luck with 15 minute deliveries and more than two delivery locations per trip.
    I think they need to optimise by pre-delivering all the things you might want, so when you order your urgent item, they can just charge you £1.80 for a text message telling you to open the cupboard.
    Basically, we're talking hotel bars.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Politics For All
    @PoliticsForAlI
    NEW: Forcing GPs to do more face-to-face appointments is ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’, the head of the British Medical Association has said

    Via @Telegraph
    7:30 PM · Oct 17, 2021"

    Let me get this straight. Asking GPs to do the work they were doing before Covid struck is "harassment" and "discrimination"?



    Very difficult to understand.
  • Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Politics For All
    @PoliticsForAlI
    NEW: Forcing GPs to do more face-to-face appointments is ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’, the head of the British Medical Association has said

    Via @Telegraph
    7:30 PM · Oct 17, 2021"

    Let me get this straight. Asking GPs to do the work they were doing before Covid struck is "harassment" and "discrimination"?
    Not quite. Here is what the BMA boss tweeted and that the Telegraph is responding to.

    No other part of NHS is subject to access league tables blaming them for workforce shortages, publicly shaming with patient feedback texts, & CQC hit squads blaming them for failing. If general practice was an employee, it would claim harassment, discrimination, victimisation
    https://twitter.com/CNagpaul/status/1449667564653748225
    Arguably it is deflection. HMG wants a return to normal and is putting £250 million into a fund, access to which will be governed by a new league table. The BMA is saying it is unfair to blame GP practices for a 6,000 shortfall in GPs. No doubt there is more to it than that.

    To channel another PBer, maybe they need to pay more (or offer better terms) to attract more doctors. Or more back to full-time rather than part-time practice.

    One problem is they are trapped in a vicious circle. Increased demand (and Covid restrictions) worsen service which raises stress (including abuse and assault) which means more people leave which makes the service worse which increases stress (including abuse and assault) which...
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    They are using predictive AI algorithms and knew you what you were going to order before you did ...
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673

    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Politics For All
    @PoliticsForAlI
    NEW: Forcing GPs to do more face-to-face appointments is ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’, the head of the British Medical Association has said

    Via @Telegraph
    7:30 PM · Oct 17, 2021"

    Let me get this straight. Asking GPs to do the work they were doing before Covid struck is "harassment" and "discrimination"?
    Not quite. Here is what the BMA boss tweeted and that the Telegraph is responding to.

    No other part of NHS is subject to access league tables blaming them for workforce shortages, publicly shaming with patient feedback texts, & CQC hit squads blaming them for failing. If general practice was an employee, it would claim harassment, discrimination, victimisation
    https://twitter.com/CNagpaul/status/1449667564653748225
    Actually all of the NHS gets quality assessments, patient feedback, and yes, league tables on access (they are known as waiting lists everywhere else).
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    Make the most of it. These services will close when the runway money runs out.
    Will they?

    They are sustainable - they use bicycles. They have darkstores across London, ready to go

    I asked my bicycle guy how come it was so fast. He said "as soon we get your order people start rushing around in Kentish Town, fulfilling your order, and that means we can get it to you in ten minutes, as we promise"

    It would be interesting to see how they cope with an order of 30 items rather than 1. Can they do this in 10 minutes? But who knows. Maybe they can

    They are apparently German, and they also have vigorous competitors, already

    I don't see why their model should fail, it does not have the intrinsic flaws of Uber. And the convenience is insane. You've forgotten a few items from your shop, and you're about to cook? Don't go back to the supermarket, use Gorillas, it will be there in 10 minutes. Ditto late night groceries
    Nah, they're absolutely burning through cash. It's their startup funding to try and buy market share from Uber eats and getir, the latter of which is likely to also not do very well given the cash burn rate.
    There’s half a dozen of these in every major city these days, all burning through massive amounts of VC cash hoping to be the one left standing, and able to charge genuine delivery prices - which of course very few people are going to want to pay.

    Eventually, we’ll go back to either ordering a big delivery from the supermarket, or getting bread and milk urgently by sending an SMS to the corner shop, who doesn’t need an app platform or a marketing budget.
  • Britain faces ‘wave of terror attacks plotted by bedroom radicals’
    Security services warn ministers over new threat from ‘lone wolves’ who were radicalised online during lockdown

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/17/britain-faces-wave-terror-attacks-plotted-bedroom-radicals/ (£££)
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    The thing is that going to Tesco Metro and back is 25 minutes of your time. That's 25 minutes of labour that you were previously expending, that someone else will have to to do, and they will have to be appropriately compensated.
    Not if they are delivering to a bunch of other people on the same route.
    Good luck with 15 minute deliveries and more than two delivery locations per trip.
    I think they need to optimise by pre-delivering all the things you might want, so when you order your urgent item, they can just charge you £1.80 for a text message telling you to open the cupboard.
    Basically, we're talking hotel bars.
    They used to use this model in Japan for medicine, they'd put a cabinet full in your house and you only had to pay for what you used.
    https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/配置販売業
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    rcs1000 said:

    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    They are using predictive AI algorithms and knew you what you were going to order before you did ...
    You don't need a very sophisticated AI to work out that @Leon is going to be ordering alcohol.
    Now the trick would be to develop a program that delivers whatever crap the merchant has not sold yet, but convinces the punter that is exactly what he or she ordered, and to sell this at a premium.
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,136

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Aslan said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    The thing is that going to Tesco Metro and back is 25 minutes of your time. That's 25 minutes of labour that you were previously expending, that someone else will have to to do, and they will have to be appropriately compensated.
    Not if they are delivering to a bunch of other people on the same route.
    Good luck with 15 minute deliveries and more than two delivery locations per trip.
    I think they need to optimise by pre-delivering all the things you might want, so when you order your urgent item, they can just charge you £1.80 for a text message telling you to open the cupboard.
    Basically, we're talking hotel bars.
    They used to use this model in Japan for medicine, they'd put a cabinet full in your house and you only had to pay for what you used.
    https://ja.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/配置販売業
    Just to add, this gave Edo-era Japanese pharma insanely great data, they had a database showing them exactly what each household was suffering from at what times of the year.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Something new I learned this morning: Facebook has a “Director of Integrity”
    Something I didn’t need to learn this morning: Facebook has a massive problem with dodgy content and moderation.
    Something else I didn’t need to learn this morning. Companies love to talk about “AI”, when that’s not what they actually mean.

    https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/10/18/0041258/new-internal-documents-contradict-facebooks-claims-that-ai-can-enforce-its-rules
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,227
    edited October 2021
    Sandpit said:

    Something new I learned this morning: Facebook has a “Director of Integrity”
    Something I didn’t need to learn this morning: Facebook has a massive problem with dodgy content and moderation.
    Something else I didn’t need to learn this morning. Companies love to talk about “AI”, when that’s not what they actually mean.

    https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/10/18/0041258/new-internal-documents-contradict-facebooks-claims-that-ai-can-enforce-its-rules

    Am nominating myself to be PB's "Director of Depravity"!

    However, if the election is contested, wouldn't our resident Flint Knapper enjoy pole position?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited October 2021


    Sandpit said:

    Something new I learned this morning: Facebook has a “Director of Integrity”
    Something I didn’t need to learn this morning: Facebook has a massive problem with dodgy content and moderation.
    Something else I didn’t need to learn this morning. Companies love to talk about “AI”, when that’s not what they actually mean.

    https://tech.slashdot.org/story/21/10/18/0041258/new-internal-documents-contradict-facebooks-claims-that-ai-can-enforce-its-rules

    Am nominating myself to be PB's "Directory of Depravity"!

    However, if the election is contested, wouldn't our resident Flint Knapper enjoy pole position?
    One of the mods is something of an authority when it comes to stepmoms on pornhub.
  • squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,287
    The sensible thing to do is to keep a stock of your favourite wines, it doesn't need to be massive and then the delivery and additional cost is irrelevant.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Sandpit said:

    MaxPB said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    Make the most of it. These services will close when the runway money runs out.
    Will they?

    They are sustainable - they use bicycles. They have darkstores across London, ready to go

    I asked my bicycle guy how come it was so fast. He said "as soon we get your order people start rushing around in Kentish Town, fulfilling your order, and that means we can get it to you in ten minutes, as we promise"

    It would be interesting to see how they cope with an order of 30 items rather than 1. Can they do this in 10 minutes? But who knows. Maybe they can

    They are apparently German, and they also have vigorous competitors, already

    I don't see why their model should fail, it does not have the intrinsic flaws of Uber. And the convenience is insane. You've forgotten a few items from your shop, and you're about to cook? Don't go back to the supermarket, use Gorillas, it will be there in 10 minutes. Ditto late night groceries
    Nah, they're absolutely burning through cash. It's their startup funding to try and buy market share from Uber eats and getir, the latter of which is likely to also not do very well given the cash burn rate.
    There’s half a dozen of these in every major city these days, all burning through massive amounts of VC cash hoping to be the one left standing, and able to charge genuine delivery prices - which of course very few people are going to want to pay.

    Eventually, we’ll go back to either ordering a big delivery from the supermarket, or getting bread and milk urgently by sending an SMS to the corner shop, who doesn’t need an app platform or a marketing budget.
    I've got a shop across the road from me, one minute away. Limited range and a bit run down but amazingly convenient. No need to mess around with an app or wait around for a delivery, just walk across the road and get whatever I want.

    The thing is that the government have enacted planning reforms that will kill these shops, which have been in decline anyway for a long time. They think that at as long as there is another shop within 1km, there is no need for them, and they can be converted to poor quality housing - mostly a phenomenon in the south east.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    darkage said:

    The sensible thing to do is to keep a stock of your favourite wines, it doesn't need to be massive and then the delivery and additional cost is irrelevant.

    I've tried variants of this strategy over the years - always leads to a disproportionate increase in the rate of consumption.
    The trick is to store them in an annoying place. Preferably one that requires putting your coat on to retrieve.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    darkage said:

    The sensible thing to do is to keep a stock of your favourite wines, it doesn't need to be massive and then the delivery and additional cost is irrelevant.

    I've tried variants of this strategy over the years - always leads to a disproportionate increase in the rate of consumption.
    Doesn’t it just? I can make that strategy work for the dinner-party wines, the nice ones that are reserved for occasions and will earn an ear-bending if they disappear on a random Tuesday in front of Netflix. It doesn’t work with what might be called the ‘house drinks’ though, those stop being consumed when the cupboard is bare.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766

    The sensible thing to do is to keep a stock of your favourite wines, it doesn't need to be massive and then the delivery and additional cost is irrelevant.

    Agreed. Just 2-3,000 bottles of your favorite wines and you are good for at least a couple of years.
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382

    The sensible thing to do is to keep a stock of your favourite wines, it doesn't need to be massive and then the delivery and additional cost is irrelevant.

    The sensible thing is to stop drinking alcohol all together. Cut down the risk a dementia and help you sleep better
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    I've switched the colours round on the chart.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,702
    tlg86 said:
    Ha ha, typical Guardian. Focussing on the real victims.
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,702

    The sensible thing to do is to keep a stock of your favourite wines, it doesn't need to be massive and then the delivery and additional cost is irrelevant.

    The sensible thing is to stop drinking alcohol all together. Cut down the risk a dementia and help you sleep better
    There is nothing wrong with drinking in moderation. Indeed it does have health benefits.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,733
    Taz said:

    The sensible thing to do is to keep a stock of your favourite wines, it doesn't need to be massive and then the delivery and additional cost is irrelevant.

    The sensible thing is to stop drinking alcohol all together. Cut down the risk a dementia and help you sleep better
    There is nothing wrong with drinking in moderation. Indeed it does have health benefits.
    I wouldn’t know, I’ve never tried drinking inmoderation. I prefer alcohol.
  • I've switched the colours round on the chart.

    On www but not on the Vanilla header. Whether it matters...
  • TazTaz Posts: 10,702
    ydoethur said:

    Taz said:

    The sensible thing to do is to keep a stock of your favourite wines, it doesn't need to be massive and then the delivery and additional cost is irrelevant.

    The sensible thing is to stop drinking alcohol all together. Cut down the risk a dementia and help you sleep better
    There is nothing wrong with drinking in moderation. Indeed it does have health benefits.
    I wouldn’t know, I’ve never tried drinking inmoderation. I prefer alcohol.
    Ba-dum-fish !
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080
    moonshine said:

    darkage said:

    The sensible thing to do is to keep a stock of your favourite wines, it doesn't need to be massive and then the delivery and additional cost is irrelevant.

    I've tried variants of this strategy over the years - always leads to a disproportionate increase in the rate of consumption.
    The trick is to store them in an annoying place. Preferably one that requires putting your coat on to retrieve.
    Ask the supermarket to keep them for you?
  • One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    One thing before more details emerged was an MP saying mental health has got worse in recent years. I discussed that point with my other half and we agreed that
    i. No it probably has not
    ii. It can be a bit of a go to when these sorts of things happen.
  • Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    Yeah, and honestly from my quiet corner of rural Aberdeenshire, I wouldn't swap. But things like this get me all excited and a part of me yearns to have anything even vaguely approaching that.
    Consider me low-key jealous.
    I also live in the quiet bits of Aberdeenshire, but thats not really the issue here.

    All of these "delivery in 10 minutes" services will be gone within a year or two. They are preposterously unsustainable and there is literally no way to make money from them As long as VC money keeps flowing in they can operate. As soon as it stops they fold - OR impose the cost of operations on their customers and Sean stops ordering wine at TooLateO'Clock on a Sunday.

    All the supermarkets know that people want a shop at the end of their garden that sells everything. Firstly with online delivery and now this madness they are trying to fulfil those desires. But in reality it loses everyone money, is massively disruptive to operations (having a horde of people hanging round your store then literally running round it when their phone buzzes GO) and feels a bit faddy.

    If anyone feels like investing, stick your money in any of them trialling robots. There is almost no chance that this army of jobbers on bikes will be doing it long term, they are just human robots standing in to test a business model before actual robots take over. Various trials already happening of automated delivery bots, once they perfect the tech thats all these people working for all these cash-haemmoraging start-ups gone.
  • Pulpstar said:

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    One thing before more details emerged was an MP saying mental health has got worse in recent years. I discussed that point with my other half and we agreed that
    i. No it probably has not
    ii. It can be a bit of a go to when these sorts of things happen.
    Mental health issues do seem to have got worse; Muslims are not immune; even in this case, I'd predict they will be a crucial factor.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    A man has been arrested in connection with a death threat being sent to Labour's Rhondda MP Chris Bryant. South Wales Police said a 76-year-old from Pontycymer, Bridgend county, was arrested on suspicion of malicious communications.
    Officers were called at about 16:30 BST on 16 October after reports of malicious communications being sent. Mr Bryant said he got the death threat after calling for people to be kinder following Sir David Amess' death.


    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-58951337
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    MrEd said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    Make the most of it. These services will close when the runway money runs out.
    Will they?

    They are sustainable - they use bicycles. They have darkstores across London, ready to go

    I asked my bicycle guy how come it was so fast. He said "as soon we get your order people start rushing around in Kentish Town, fulfilling your order, and that means we can get it to you in ten minutes, as we promise"

    It would be interesting to see how they cope with an order of 30 items rather than 1. Can they do this in 10 minutes? But who knows. Maybe they can

    They are apparently German, and they also have vigorous competitors, already

    I don't see why their model should fail, it does not have the intrinsic flaws of Uber. And the convenience is insane. You've forgotten a few items from your shop, and you're about to cook? Don't go back to the supermarket, use Gorillas, it will be there in 10 minutes. Ditto late night groceries
    I assume your original message should read £1.80 delivery.

    That does not seem sustainable to me. As the guy said, people start rushing around when the order comes in. People starting to rush around costs money.
    It’s a massive land grab. All the players know it is unsustainable, the aim is to be amongst the biggest, force the weaker players to exit and then grow margins over the long term. That’s the theory.
    In reality the theory is to find someone who *believes* you are doing that, IPO the business and head for the hills to count your loot
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    Alistair said:

    Andy_JS said:

    carnforth said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    If you pay Deliveroo a subscription of £13 a month, you can have unlimited free deliveries with minimum order each time of £10.
    How can they afford to pay the people who deliver the goods?
    It's subsidised by VC cash.

    It is not remotely sustainable.
    Believe (based on grapevine & media reports) that many delivery-service drivers depend on tips, esp. as delivery companies have tendency to nickel & dime them (don't know UK equivalent!) on the apps, by deductions & other dodges?

    So I hear.
    Tipping isn't much of a thing for delivery in the UK
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461

    Alistair said:

    Andy_JS said:

    carnforth said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    If you pay Deliveroo a subscription of £13 a month, you can have unlimited free deliveries with minimum order each time of £10.
    How can they afford to pay the people who deliver the goods?
    It's subsidised by VC cash.

    It is not remotely sustainable.
    Believe (based on grapevine & media reports) that many delivery-service drivers depend on tips, esp. as delivery companies have tendency to nickel & dime them (don't know UK equivalent!) on the apps, by deductions & other dodges?

    So I hear.
    Over 10 years ago now but I worked a second job delivering for Pizza Hut. Got minimum wage plus 60p per drop as using own car. Presume that second figure has gone up a lot since.

    We had a weekly chart of delivery times per driver and being competitive I topped it every week. But even then I never hit 5 per hour even including a few double orders. Delivery radius was approx 3 miles in west york. a smaller more densely populated area would see that rise.

    As for tipping I doubt it averaged close to 50p per delivery. Most who paid online never tipped. Usual best to hope for was a cash order for 18.90 or 19.45 and they might say keep the change. So a 4 hour evening shift might see 16 drops but unlikely to get £5 in tips.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?
  • Pulpstar said:

    Alistair said:

    Andy_JS said:

    carnforth said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    If you pay Deliveroo a subscription of £13 a month, you can have unlimited free deliveries with minimum order each time of £10.
    How can they afford to pay the people who deliver the goods?
    It's subsidised by VC cash.

    It is not remotely sustainable.
    Believe (based on grapevine & media reports) that many delivery-service drivers depend on tips, esp. as delivery companies have tendency to nickel & dime them (don't know UK equivalent!) on the apps, by deductions & other dodges?

    So I hear.
    Tipping isn't much of a thing for delivery in the UK
    I tip the driver a quid (via the app). Although I use Deliveroo, lunch might well be delivered by someone wearing a Just Eats shirt and carrying an Ocado bag. Same with minicabs and Uber, I think. What that says about the business model I'm not sure but I suspect it does rather complicate moves to treat drivers as employees.
  • One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761
    Pulpstar said:

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    One thing before more details emerged was an MP saying mental health has got worse in recent years. I discussed that point with my other half and we agreed that
    i. No it probably has not
    ii. It can be a bit of a go to when these sorts of things happen.
    But what happened is that a lot of people who would previously have been in secure accommodation for their safety and ours are now receiving the completely misnamed "care in the community" which all too often means that they are isolated, neglected and not taking their meds when they should. So the risk to those with mental health issues, both for themselves and for those about them, has increased even if the incidence of actual illness hasn't.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    London: British migrants could help plug a feared worker shortage under a deal being pursued by Trade Minister Dan Tehan as the Australian economy bounces back from the coronavirus pandemic.

    A new free-trade agreement between Canberra and London, due to be finalised within days, will make it easier for people to live and work in both countries, but Tehan will seek extra visa changes over the coming months to lure even more Brits to the Australian workforce.....

    Tehan told London business figures that Australia would be “willing to do more” than what the new trade agreement will offer on mobility, “because if we can’t have free exchange and movement of people between ourselves, then who can we have it with?”


    https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/dan-tehan-opens-door-to-british-workers-to-fill-pandemic-hole-20211017-p590li.html
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited October 2021

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Apart from what's online? No.

    Aren't we lucky Boris has signed us up for war with China in order to sell billions of dollars' worth of American submarines to Australia? Our cut being schadenfreude at annoying the French but no actual cash in return for facing this exciting new threat. And we thought it was only Russian hypersonic missiles we needed to worry about.
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461
    I'd be interested to see the figures in the header chart split by voting intention. Because a lot of those saying Labour would do better are presumably not saying they would vote for them. Maybe Labour need to be asking them why and fixing this.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    Yeah, and honestly from my quiet corner of rural Aberdeenshire, I wouldn't swap. But things like this get me all excited and a part of me yearns to have anything even vaguely approaching that.
    Consider me low-key jealous.
    I also live in the quiet bits of Aberdeenshire, but thats not really the issue here.

    All of these "delivery in 10 minutes" services will be gone within a year or two. They are preposterously unsustainable and there is literally no way to make money from them As long as VC money keeps flowing in they can operate. As soon as it stops they fold - OR impose the cost of operations on their customers and Sean stops ordering wine at TooLateO'Clock on a Sunday.

    All the supermarkets know that people want a shop at the end of their garden that sells everything. Firstly with online delivery and now this madness they are trying to fulfil those desires. But in reality it loses everyone money, is massively disruptive to operations (having a horde of people hanging round your store then literally running round it when their phone buzzes GO) and feels a bit faddy.

    If anyone feels like investing, stick your money in any of them trialling robots. There is almost no chance that this army of jobbers on bikes will be doing it long term, they are just human robots standing in to test a business model before actual robots take over. Various trials already happening of automated delivery bots, once they perfect the tech thats all these people working for all these cash-haemmoraging start-ups gone.
    Agreed - apart from the robots.

    There might be a few pilot schemes of robots at trade fairs, or in a single office block in the City, but there’s no way they’ll be on the streets until there’s no people on the streets. The issue isn’t the tech, it’s the idiotic people. Look at how many Western cities have abandoned scooter rentals, because drunk people think they belong in the canal or a skip. Asian markets may of course be different.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    https://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-hypersonic-missile-surprised-us-spies-with-its-space-capability-2021-10

    It came from a NORAD report. The Americans don’t seem too happy about it, and are all but admitting the Chinese can now directly target the USA beyond the capability of their defence systems.
  • I'd be interested to see the figures in the header chart split by voting intention. Because a lot of those saying Labour would do better are presumably not saying they would vote for them. Maybe Labour need to be asking them why and fixing this.

    Tories poll about 40% so whilst they get a Westminster majority it is not unexpected to see them behind in polls like this, especially if you add in government incompetence and a tendency to imagine the grass to be greener elsewhere. I don't think it translates well into the majority being at risk.
  • Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Apart from what's online? No.

    Aren't we lucky Boris has signed us up for war with China in order to sell billions of dollars' worth of American submarines to Australia? Our cut being schadenfreude at annoying the French but no actual cash in return for facing this exciting new threat. And we thought it was only Russian hypersonic missiles we needed to worry about.
    Typical extremist failing to realise the purpose of a solid defence program is to prevent war in the first place. Not to need to fight it.

    Si vis pacem, para bellum.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    A few seconds on that page tears holes in what you posted. It says slice 2001 there have been around 100 deaths, so in the last 20 years, that’s 5 a year. So the average of 70 per year is hugely misleading for the last two decades, and should not be a comparator.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    These figures are somewhat distorted by Lockerbie but I must confess had I guessed the number of terrorist incidents without Google since 2018 I would have guessed a lot higher figure than that. I am not sure if this means that our huge and expensive security industry is being very successful or is simply disproportionate to the threat. What is clear is that the withdrawal from active duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan has had a significant impact.
  • Sandpit said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    Yeah, and honestly from my quiet corner of rural Aberdeenshire, I wouldn't swap. But things like this get me all excited and a part of me yearns to have anything even vaguely approaching that.
    Consider me low-key jealous.
    I also live in the quiet bits of Aberdeenshire, but thats not really the issue here.

    All of these "delivery in 10 minutes" services will be gone within a year or two. They are preposterously unsustainable and there is literally no way to make money from them As long as VC money keeps flowing in they can operate. As soon as it stops they fold - OR impose the cost of operations on their customers and Sean stops ordering wine at TooLateO'Clock on a Sunday.

    All the supermarkets know that people want a shop at the end of their garden that sells everything. Firstly with online delivery and now this madness they are trying to fulfil those desires. But in reality it loses everyone money, is massively disruptive to operations (having a horde of people hanging round your store then literally running round it when their phone buzzes GO) and feels a bit faddy.

    If anyone feels like investing, stick your money in any of them trialling robots. There is almost no chance that this army of jobbers on bikes will be doing it long term, they are just human robots standing in to test a business model before actual robots take over. Various trials already happening of automated delivery bots, once they perfect the tech thats all these people working for all these cash-haemmoraging start-ups gone.
    Agreed - apart from the robots.

    There might be a few pilot schemes of robots at trade fairs, or in a single office block in the City, but there’s no way they’ll be on the streets until there’s no people on the streets. The issue isn’t the tech, it’s the idiotic people. Look at how many Western cities have abandoned scooter rentals, because drunk people think they belong in the canal or a skip. Asian markets may of course be different.
    There are robot deliveries in Milton Keynes.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    https://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-hypersonic-missile-surprised-us-spies-with-its-space-capability-2021-10

    It came from a NORAD report. The Americans don’t seem too happy about it, and are all but admitting the Chinese can now directly target the USA beyond the capability of their defence systems.
    So maybe the UAPs are Chinese, not aliens?😀
  • One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    A few seconds on that page tears holes in what you posted. It says slice 2001 there have been around 100 deaths, so in the last 20 years, that’s 5 a year. So the average of 70 per year is hugely misleading for the last two decades, and should not be a comparator.
    Why ever not? We should be proud as a country of reducing terrorist incidents over that time, not ever more afraid because of new forms of media and sharing.
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,415
    edited October 2021

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    To some extent that is true but the terrorism today is less organised (more lone wolf) and therefore less able to be rationally dealt with or even negotiated with . You can power share in Ireland for instance but you cannot sit round a table with God or Allah or indeed is more extreme adherents and thrash out a solution.
    Also Irish terrorism was less targeted at civilians than islamic terror is
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sandpit said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    Yeah, and honestly from my quiet corner of rural Aberdeenshire, I wouldn't swap. But things like this get me all excited and a part of me yearns to have anything even vaguely approaching that.
    Consider me low-key jealous.
    I also live in the quiet bits of Aberdeenshire, but thats not really the issue here.

    All of these "delivery in 10 minutes" services will be gone within a year or two. They are preposterously unsustainable and there is literally no way to make money from them As long as VC money keeps flowing in they can operate. As soon as it stops they fold - OR impose the cost of operations on their customers and Sean stops ordering wine at TooLateO'Clock on a Sunday.

    All the supermarkets know that people want a shop at the end of their garden that sells everything. Firstly with online delivery and now this madness they are trying to fulfil those desires. But in reality it loses everyone money, is massively disruptive to operations (having a horde of people hanging round your store then literally running round it when their phone buzzes GO) and feels a bit faddy.

    If anyone feels like investing, stick your money in any of them trialling robots. There is almost no chance that this army of jobbers on bikes will be doing it long term, they are just human robots standing in to test a business model before actual robots take over. Various trials already happening of automated delivery bots, once they perfect the tech thats all these people working for all these cash-haemmoraging start-ups gone.
    Agreed - apart from the robots.

    There might be a few pilot schemes of robots at trade fairs, or in a single office block in the City, but there’s no way they’ll be on the streets until there’s no people on the streets. The issue isn’t the tech, it’s the idiotic people. Look at how many Western cities have abandoned scooter rentals, because drunk people think they belong in the canal or a skip. Asian markets may of course be different.
    There are robot deliveries in Milton Keynes.
    Ah yes, that appears to be going, err, swimmingly.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-53678376
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461

    I'd be interested to see the figures in the header chart split by voting intention. Because a lot of those saying Labour would do better are presumably not saying they would vote for them. Maybe Labour need to be asking them why and fixing this.

    Tories poll about 40% so whilst they get a Westminster majority it is not unexpected to see them behind in polls like this, especially if you add in government incompetence and a tendency to imagine the grass to be greener elsewhere. I don't think it translates well into the majority being at risk.
    Ah yes. Tories could be losing by 19 for NHS without any of their headline VI figure voting against.
  • DavidL said:

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    These figures are somewhat distorted by Lockerbie but I must confess had I guessed the number of terrorist incidents without Google since 2018 I would have guessed a lot higher figure than that. I am not sure if this means that our huge and expensive security industry is being very successful or is simply disproportionate to the threat. What is clear is that the withdrawal from active duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan has had a significant impact.
    The number of deaths per incident is falling as well as both on their own, so yes I think the security services are far more successful than the public give them credit for. We only see the "failures" not the preventions.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761
    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    https://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-hypersonic-missile-surprised-us-spies-with-its-space-capability-2021-10

    It came from a NORAD report. The Americans don’t seem too happy about it, and are all but admitting the Chinese can now directly target the USA beyond the capability of their defence systems.
    Does this mean that their interceptors cannot work with hypersonic targets? If so they are a serious waste of money.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    A few seconds on that page tears holes in what you posted. It says slice 2001 there have been around 100 deaths, so in the last 20 years, that’s 5 a year. So the average of 70 per year is hugely misleading for the last two decades, and should not be a comparator.
    Why ever not? We should be proud as a country of reducing terrorist incidents over that time, not ever more afraid because of new forms of media and sharing.
    No your sentiment about the progress made is fine, but use of the average is wrong for many reasons, not least the Good Friday agreement.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    edited October 2021
    Lets see how "joined up" the thinking is....

    The chancellor needs to start talking about net zero and how he will manage the transition. The Treasury’s net zero review should explain the government’s estimates of the cost of the transition; who will bear the direct costs; how these will be shared between the taxpayer and consumers; and to what extent the Treasury will look to borrowing to meet its aims. It should also explain how the government proposes to protect those least well placed to bear the costs of transition. ...

    The government needs to gain and maintain public consent for its approach to paying for net zero. It will be unable to stick to its desired approach if it becomes too controversial. It needs to roll the pitch in advance and work actively to maintain public consent, which means it needs to convince people it is being fair. So the Treasury needs to commit to proper public engagement in its net zero review – and take account of the conclusions from that engagement in its decision making.


    https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/net-zero-tax.pdf
  • Jonathan said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Sounds like the opening to a bad joke, but it isn’t.

    Anecdote alert…

    Last week I was working with a consultancy in China, helping us with some aspects of our business. What was interesting was a barely concealed contempt for European (inc U.K.) technology. China is a ‘digital economy’ (unlike Europe) and that things ‘move so much more slowly in the West’. Chinese customers have ‘far greater expectations’ than Europeans.

    Whether true or not, the attitude is clear. We in the west are at the wrong end of another industrial revolution.

    We should be concerned.
    Its one of the reasons why Brexit became so necessary in the end.

    The delusional belief that Europe is the only continent that matters, and that we can shut away the rest of the world so long as we stop competing with each other in Europe has led to the failed attitudes that led to @DecrepitJohnL mocking us standing up to China - and to things like GDPR being taken as the way to deal with technology instead of innovation.

    There's a reason "unicorns" come from the USA, China and the UK and we're right post-Brexit to go hunting for more unicorns and not sign up to levelling down Europe Only madness.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Apparently the suspect went on a deradicalisation course.

    image

    Really work then dont they?
    They are reasonably good but not 100%
  • paulyork64paulyork64 Posts: 2,461
    Sandpit said:

    Sandpit said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    Yeah, and honestly from my quiet corner of rural Aberdeenshire, I wouldn't swap. But things like this get me all excited and a part of me yearns to have anything even vaguely approaching that.
    Consider me low-key jealous.
    I also live in the quiet bits of Aberdeenshire, but thats not really the issue here.

    All of these "delivery in 10 minutes" services will be gone within a year or two. They are preposterously unsustainable and there is literally no way to make money from them As long as VC money keeps flowing in they can operate. As soon as it stops they fold - OR impose the cost of operations on their customers and Sean stops ordering wine at TooLateO'Clock on a Sunday.

    All the supermarkets know that people want a shop at the end of their garden that sells everything. Firstly with online delivery and now this madness they are trying to fulfil those desires. But in reality it loses everyone money, is massively disruptive to operations (having a horde of people hanging round your store then literally running round it when their phone buzzes GO) and feels a bit faddy.

    If anyone feels like investing, stick your money in any of them trialling robots. There is almost no chance that this army of jobbers on bikes will be doing it long term, they are just human robots standing in to test a business model before actual robots take over. Various trials already happening of automated delivery bots, once they perfect the tech thats all these people working for all these cash-haemmoraging start-ups gone.
    Agreed - apart from the robots.

    There might be a few pilot schemes of robots at trade fairs, or in a single office block in the City, but there’s no way they’ll be on the streets until there’s no people on the streets. The issue isn’t the tech, it’s the idiotic people. Look at how many Western cities have abandoned scooter rentals, because drunk people think they belong in the canal or a skip. Asian markets may of course be different.
    There are robot deliveries in Milton Keynes.
    Ah yes, that appears to be going, err, swimmingly.
    https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-53678376
    Superb. Starship Technologies. Building a dream together of robot deliveries for all. Nothing's gonna stop them now. Except the canal.
  • One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    A few seconds on that page tears holes in what you posted. It says slice 2001 there have been around 100 deaths, so in the last 20 years, that’s 5 a year. So the average of 70 per year is hugely misleading for the last two decades, and should not be a comparator.
    Why ever not? We should be proud as a country of reducing terrorist incidents over that time, not ever more afraid because of new forms of media and sharing.
    No your sentiment about the progress made is fine, but use of the average is wrong for many reasons, not least the Good Friday agreement.
    You may choose a different baseline, but it is absurd to say mine is wrong. It broadly correlates with my lifetime so is relevant to me (and probably about the average person in the UKs lifetime). Also being on the easiest page to find such stats, using the whole list prevents me adding bias into the data by selecting what would be good or bad for my argument.

  • Charles said:

    Apparently the suspect went on a deradicalisation course.

    image

    Really work then dont they?
    They are reasonably good but not 100%
    I think that complacent - its the easiest solution to anything bad - do a course or educate .At this level of seriousness they really need to prove they work - i have not seen any evidence
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761

    DavidL said:

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    These figures are somewhat distorted by Lockerbie but I must confess had I guessed the number of terrorist incidents without Google since 2018 I would have guessed a lot higher figure than that. I am not sure if this means that our huge and expensive security industry is being very successful or is simply disproportionate to the threat. What is clear is that the withdrawal from active duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan has had a significant impact.
    The number of deaths per incident is falling as well as both on their own, so yes I think the security services are far more successful than the public give them credit for. We only see the "failures" not the preventions.
    Almost all of the incidents I can recall since 7/7 have been lone wolf operations by individual nutters. By their nature the casualties of such operations tend to be low. It seems organised terrorism is very difficult to do in this country given the level of surveillance. Whilst this is obviously a good thing in most respects it suggests to me a pervasiveness of observation and a capacity that is just a little frightening.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Jonathan said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Sounds like the opening to a bad joke, but it isn’t.

    Anecdote alert…

    Last week I was working with a consultancy in China, helping us with some aspects of our business. What was interesting was a barely concealed contempt for European (inc U.K.) technology. China is a ‘digital economy’ (unlike Europe) and that things ‘move so much more slowly in the West’. Chinese customers have ‘far greater expectations’ than Europeans.

    Whether true or not, the attitude is clear. We in the west are at the wrong end of another industrial revolution.

    We should be concerned.
    Its one of the reasons why Brexit became so necessary in the end.

    The delusional belief that Europe is the only continent that matters, and that we can shut away the rest of the world so long as we stop competing with each other in Europe has led to the failed attitudes that led to @DecrepitJohnL mocking us standing up to China - and to things like GDPR being taken as the way to deal with technology instead of innovation.

    There's a reason "unicorns" come from the USA, China and the UK and we're right post-Brexit to go hunting for more unicorns and not sign up to levelling down Europe Only madness.
    Not sure the political and economic fragmentation of Europe helps us much.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Sandpit, well, I guess that means there's a high chance that when the Chinese go for Taiwan there won't be a defence of it beyond the island itself.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    These figures are somewhat distorted by Lockerbie but I must confess had I guessed the number of terrorist incidents without Google since 2018 I would have guessed a lot higher figure than that. I am not sure if this means that our huge and expensive security industry is being very successful or is simply disproportionate to the threat. What is clear is that the withdrawal from active duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan has had a significant impact.
    The number of deaths per incident is falling as well as both on their own, so yes I think the security services are far more successful than the public give them credit for. We only see the "failures" not the preventions.
    Almost all of the incidents I can recall since 7/7 have been lone wolf operations by individual nutters. By their nature the casualties of such operations tend to be low. It seems organised terrorism is very difficult to do in this country given the level of surveillance. Whilst this is obviously a good thing in most respects it suggests to me a pervasiveness of observation and a capacity that is just a little frightening.

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    A few seconds on that page tears holes in what you posted. It says slice 2001 there have been around 100 deaths, so in the last 20 years, that’s 5 a year. So the average of 70 per year is hugely misleading for the last two decades, and should not be a comparator.
    Why ever not? We should be proud as a country of reducing terrorist incidents over that time, not ever more afraid because of new forms of media and sharing.
    No your sentiment about the progress made is fine, but use of the average is wrong for many reasons, not least the Good Friday agreement.
    You may choose a different baseline, but it is absurd to say mine is wrong. It broadly correlates with my lifetime so is relevant to me (and probably about the average person in the UKs lifetime). Also being on the easiest page to find such stats, using the whole list prevents me adding bias into the data by selecting what would be good or bad for my argument.

    Also, explicitly between 1971 and 2001, just over 400 on the U.K. mainland, which suggests a massive skew by NI.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    An interesting question. I would say that the answer is that we have just got used to the situation with islamic terrorism, and are basically in denial of the problem; as there seems to be no acceptable answer to it. So we can see the usual initial outrage being replaced by a 'wait and see until the full facts are established' type of procrastination; talk about mental health, looking for other completely irrelevant reasons (like trying to blame Angela Rayner), condemning all forms of hate and blaming white extremists, all the usual predictable stuff. Don't look back in anger, etc.

    Remember this one: three gay men killed in a park last year. Killer heard shouting Allah Akhbal and it was accepted by the judge that he was acting to pursue an extremist cause. It all pretty much went by unnoticed: no one is talking about it now.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-54908222

  • Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Sounds like the opening to a bad joke, but it isn’t.

    Anecdote alert…

    Last week I was working with a consultancy in China, helping us with some aspects of our business. What was interesting was a barely concealed contempt for European (inc U.K.) technology. China is a ‘digital economy’ (unlike Europe) and that things ‘move so much more slowly in the West’. Chinese customers have ‘far greater expectations’ than Europeans.

    Whether true or not, the attitude is clear. We in the west are at the wrong end of another industrial revolution.

    We should be concerned.
    Its one of the reasons why Brexit became so necessary in the end.

    The delusional belief that Europe is the only continent that matters, and that we can shut away the rest of the world so long as we stop competing with each other in Europe has led to the failed attitudes that led to @DecrepitJohnL mocking us standing up to China - and to things like GDPR being taken as the way to deal with technology instead of innovation.

    There's a reason "unicorns" come from the USA, China and the UK and we're right post-Brexit to go hunting for more unicorns and not sign up to levelling down Europe Only madness.
    Not sure the political and economic fragmentation of Europe helps us much.
    If it wakes us out of our slumber and encourages competition instead of seeing how we can eliminate competition by having "common standards" [that the Chinese etc don't sign up to] then I think it helps tremendously.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited October 2021
    DavidL said:

    Sandpit said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    https://www.businessinsider.com/chinas-hypersonic-missile-surprised-us-spies-with-its-space-capability-2021-10

    It came from a NORAD report. The Americans don’t seem too happy about it, and are all but admitting the Chinese can now directly target the USA beyond the capability of their defence systems.
    Does this mean that their interceptors cannot work with hypersonic targets? If so they are a serious waste of money.
    Well, the US certainly has a lot more capability than they would ever admit to, but the noises do sound rather concerned.

    Maybe they’re trying to politely tell China that if they try that again, the US will be watching for it and prepared to react.

    That said, the suggestion is that this rocket could do several orbits before heading for the target with only a few minutes’ notice. I imagine that’s not easy to defend against, even with all systems armed and on alert.

    Cold War II does seem a step closer with this revelation.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    A few seconds on that page tears holes in what you posted. It says slice 2001 there have been around 100 deaths, so in the last 20 years, that’s 5 a year. So the average of 70 per year is hugely misleading for the last two decades, and should not be a comparator.
    Why ever not? We should be proud as a country of reducing terrorist incidents over that time, not ever more afraid because of new forms of media and sharing.
    No your sentiment about the progress made is fine, but use of the average is wrong for many reasons, not least the Good Friday agreement.
    You may choose a different baseline, but it is absurd to say mine is wrong. It broadly correlates with my lifetime so is relevant to me (and probably about the average person in the UKs lifetime). Also being on the easiest page to find such stats, using the whole list prevents me adding bias into the data by selecting what would be good or bad for my argument.

    I think my point is that recent years are in line with the last two decades. Maybe we are talking at cross purposes. I don’t recognise 100 terrorist deaths a year in the U.K. as a thing, but maybe I’m just blanking out the times before 2000, and living in England, not being as affected by NI.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Politics For All
    @PoliticsForAlI
    NEW: Forcing GPs to do more face-to-face appointments is ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’, the head of the British Medical Association has said

    Via @Telegraph
    7:30 PM · Oct 17, 2021"

    Let me get this straight. Asking GPs to do the work they were doing before Covid struck is "harassment" and "discrimination"?



    Yes. The poor dears might meet sick people.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    TimT said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    They are using predictive AI algorithms and knew you what you were going to order before you did ...
    50-something single man living alone in London orders mid-level wine at weekend… shocker!
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    Charles said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Politics For All
    @PoliticsForAlI
    NEW: Forcing GPs to do more face-to-face appointments is ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’, the head of the British Medical Association has said

    Via @Telegraph
    7:30 PM · Oct 17, 2021"

    Let me get this straight. Asking GPs to do the work they were doing before Covid struck is "harassment" and "discrimination"?



    Yes. The poor dears might meet sick people.
    Change is coming, but it’s going to be a few years yet. Last couple of years have seen increased cohorts into medical schools, to finally increase the flow of new doctors. Supply and demand. The bma has kept training low for far too long.
    I understand people are still scared of Covid, that’s natural. But doctors I think need to understand that while e-consult, and phone triage will work great for many patients, it won’t for all, and they need to care for all.
  • TimT said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    They are using predictive AI algorithms and knew you what you were going to order before you did ...
    A moderately intelligent chimp could probably predict that.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,761

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Leon wants to know if they can deliver wine?
    That is Matt-esque in bring this thread together.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,878
    DavidL said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Leon wants to know if they can deliver wine?
    That is Matt-esque in bring this thread together.
    Maybe Matt lurks here and gets his ideas from the great and good of pb?
  • One interesting difference between the USA and the EU is that despite America actually being a single country there doesn't seem to be the same inclination to stop States from competing against each other.

    Texas is quite happy to go out of its way to attract investment away from California.

    Whenever a company like Tesla or Amazon are looking to build a new base of operations then cities and states basically whore themselves in an auction to see who can be most attractive for it.

    The USA views competition as a healthy thing, the EU does not. That is why the USA is and the EU is not successful.

    If post-Brexit the EU start to view themselves in competition with the UK [as they did in the vaccines debacle] then that might make life better for both Europeans and Brits in the end.

    Competition makes us become the best versions of ourselves.
  • One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    A few seconds on that page tears holes in what you posted. It says slice 2001 there have been around 100 deaths, so in the last 20 years, that’s 5 a year. So the average of 70 per year is hugely misleading for the last two decades, and should not be a comparator.
    Why ever not? We should be proud as a country of reducing terrorist incidents over that time, not ever more afraid because of new forms of media and sharing.
    No your sentiment about the progress made is fine, but use of the average is wrong for many reasons, not least the Good Friday agreement.
    You may choose a different baseline, but it is absurd to say mine is wrong. It broadly correlates with my lifetime so is relevant to me (and probably about the average person in the UKs lifetime). Also being on the easiest page to find such stats, using the whole list prevents me adding bias into the data by selecting what would be good or bad for my argument.

    I think my point is that recent years are in line with the last two decades. Maybe we are talking at cross purposes. I don’t recognise 100 terrorist deaths a year in the U.K. as a thing, but maybe I’m just blanking out the times before 2000, and living in England, not being as affected by NI.
    We live in the UK so it is unfair to blank out NI. I have no connections there but if we just say oh thats different, lets not count it I think that was part of the reason it took so long to stop the troubles.

    Even since 2000 we have:

    2000-2017: Incidents avg 58 Deaths avg 7.8
    2017-2021: Incidents avg 2 Deaths avg 1.5

    We should be less afraid of terrorism and more proud of our success in combatting it.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Sounds like the opening to a bad joke, but it isn’t.

    Anecdote alert…

    Last week I was working with a consultancy in China, helping us with some aspects of our business. What was interesting was a barely concealed contempt for European (inc U.K.) technology. China is a ‘digital economy’ (unlike Europe) and that things ‘move so much more slowly in the West’. Chinese customers have ‘far greater expectations’ than Europeans.

    Whether true or not, the attitude is clear. We in the west are at the wrong end of another industrial revolution.

    We should be concerned.
    Its one of the reasons why Brexit became so necessary in the end.

    The delusional belief that Europe is the only continent that matters, and that we can shut away the rest of the world so long as we stop competing with each other in Europe has led to the failed attitudes that led to @DecrepitJohnL mocking us standing up to China - and to things like GDPR being taken as the way to deal with technology instead of innovation.

    There's a reason "unicorns" come from the USA, China and the UK and we're right post-Brexit to go hunting for more unicorns and not sign up to levelling down Europe Only madness.
    Not sure the political and economic fragmentation of Europe helps us much.
    If it wakes us out of our slumber and encourages competition instead of seeing how we can eliminate competition by having "common standards" [that the Chinese etc don't sign up to] then I think it helps tremendously.
    I can’t help feel the CCP will be absolutely delighted to see us divided, endlessly arguing and fragmenting our economic and political capability to complete.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Sounds like the opening to a bad joke, but it isn’t.

    Anecdote alert…

    Last week I was working with a consultancy in China, helping us with some aspects of our business. What was interesting was a barely concealed contempt for European (inc U.K.) technology. China is a ‘digital economy’ (unlike Europe) and that things ‘move so much more slowly in the West’. Chinese customers have ‘far greater expectations’ than Europeans.

    Whether true or not, the attitude is clear. We in the west are at the wrong end of another industrial revolution.

    We should be concerned.
    Its one of the reasons why Brexit became so necessary in the end.

    The delusional belief that Europe is the only continent that matters, and that we can shut away the rest of the world so long as we stop competing with each other in Europe has led to the failed attitudes that led to @DecrepitJohnL mocking us standing up to China - and to things like GDPR being taken as the way to deal with technology instead of innovation.

    There's a reason "unicorns" come from the USA, China and the UK and we're right post-Brexit to go hunting for more unicorns and not sign up to levelling down Europe Only madness.
    Not sure the political and economic fragmentation of Europe helps us much.
    If it wakes us out of our slumber and encourages competition instead of seeing how we can eliminate competition by having "common standards" [that the Chinese etc don't sign up to] then I think it helps tremendously.
    Good morning everyone. Def. Autumn here today.

    Mr T, surely the point about British-European unity is that we have a greater number of people to co-operate on an idea. You might argue that a country of 60 million will be, in some way, more 'nimble, intellectually, than one of 1.4 billion, but in the larger one there are more people to test one's ideas against.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    DavidL said:

    DavidL said:

    One thing I just thought about with the killing of David Amess is a few years ago we would have guessed straight away that it might have been Islamic terror.

    Whether its because of the lack of initial reports of the attacker saying "Allahu Akhbar" or for other reasons, that didn't enter the conversation until after the attacker was identified this time. Instead people talking about things like 'politicians being called scum' etc which while bad likely had absolutely no impact on this attack since it had entirely different motives.

    I don't know whether that's a good or a bad thing that it wasn't the first thought we went to. Whether its a sign of progress in combatting Islamic terror, or a sign of how bad things have gotten elsewhere?

    "How bad things have gotten elsewhere?"

    According to wiki the average number of terrorist incidents each year in the UK since 1970 is about 100 causing about 70 deaths.

    In the last 4 years they have a total of 8 incidents causing 6 deaths.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_Kingdom

    Obviously recent events are tragic and depressing but perspective and rationality is needed as well. From the stats it is clear that terrorism is less of a problem than it has been for most of our lifetimes.
    These figures are somewhat distorted by Lockerbie but I must confess had I guessed the number of terrorist incidents without Google since 2018 I would have guessed a lot higher figure than that. I am not sure if this means that our huge and expensive security industry is being very successful or is simply disproportionate to the threat. What is clear is that the withdrawal from active duty in both Iraq and Afghanistan has had a significant impact.
    The number of deaths per incident is falling as well as both on their own, so yes I think the security services are far more successful than the public give them credit for. We only see the "failures" not the preventions.
    Almost all of the incidents I can recall since 7/7 have been lone wolf operations by individual nutters. By their nature the casualties of such operations tend to be low. It seems organised terrorism is very difficult to do in this country given the level of surveillance. Whilst this is obviously a good thing in most respects it suggests to me a pervasiveness of observation and a capacity that is just a little frightening.
    It might sound a little harsh to say it, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack against an MP, but an amount of terrorism is the price of liberal democracy.

    The UK security services are very good at what they do, but without pervasive surveillance of everyone, the occasional nutter is going to get through the net. Thankfully, in recent years, it’s just been the occasional nutter.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,563

    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Politics For All
    @PoliticsForAlI
    NEW: Forcing GPs to do more face-to-face appointments is ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’, the head of the British Medical Association has said

    Via @Telegraph
    7:30 PM · Oct 17, 2021"

    Let me get this straight. Asking GPs to do the work they were doing before Covid struck is "harassment" and "discrimination"?
    Not quite. Here is what the BMA boss tweeted and that the Telegraph is responding to.

    No other part of NHS is subject to access league tables blaming them for workforce shortages, publicly shaming with patient feedback texts, & CQC hit squads blaming them for failing. If general practice was an employee, it would claim harassment, discrimination, victimisation
    https://twitter.com/CNagpaul/status/1449667564653748225
    But it's an employer, not employee.
    And a commissioner of healthcare into the bargain.
    Why should it be viewed as 'an employee' ?
  • Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Sounds like the opening to a bad joke, but it isn’t.

    Anecdote alert…

    Last week I was working with a consultancy in China, helping us with some aspects of our business. What was interesting was a barely concealed contempt for European (inc U.K.) technology. China is a ‘digital economy’ (unlike Europe) and that things ‘move so much more slowly in the West’. Chinese customers have ‘far greater expectations’ than Europeans.

    Whether true or not, the attitude is clear. We in the west are at the wrong end of another industrial revolution.

    We should be concerned.
    Its one of the reasons why Brexit became so necessary in the end.

    The delusional belief that Europe is the only continent that matters, and that we can shut away the rest of the world so long as we stop competing with each other in Europe has led to the failed attitudes that led to @DecrepitJohnL mocking us standing up to China - and to things like GDPR being taken as the way to deal with technology instead of innovation.

    There's a reason "unicorns" come from the USA, China and the UK and we're right post-Brexit to go hunting for more unicorns and not sign up to levelling down Europe Only madness.
    Not sure the political and economic fragmentation of Europe helps us much.
    If it wakes us out of our slumber and encourages competition instead of seeing how we can eliminate competition by having "common standards" [that the Chinese etc don't sign up to] then I think it helps tremendously.
    I can’t help feel the CCP will be absolutely delighted to see us divided, endlessly arguing and fragmenting our economic and political capability to complete.
    Divided and endlessly arguing is the nature of the beast of the EU isn't it?

    Worst of both worlds, too united to act competitively and individually, too divided to have a genuine single polity, single military and single foreign policy.

    There is a reason why tiny Taiwan is able to be a serious player on the global stage economically and have a military that is offputting to China despite being Chinese ethnically and so very close to China geographically and that is because they competitively put the effort in to do so.

    We're three times their size and you think we need to spend our time arguing in the Commission over the latest GDPR regulations instead of getting on and doing things?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    One interesting difference between the USA and the EU is that despite America actually being a single country there doesn't seem to be the same inclination to stop States from competing against each other.

    Texas is quite happy to go out of its way to attract investment away from California.

    Whenever a company like Tesla or Amazon are looking to build a new base of operations then cities and states basically whore themselves in an auction to see who can be most attractive for it.

    The USA views competition as a healthy thing, the EU does not. That is why the USA is and the EU is not successful.

    If post-Brexit the EU start to view themselves in competition with the UK [as they did in the vaccines debacle] then that might make life better for both Europeans and Brits in the end.

    Competition makes us become the best versions of ourselves.

    It's argued that H. sapiens ability to work together in reasonably large groups was a significant part of the reason for it's success vis-a-vis the Neanderthals, Denisovians etc.
  • One interesting difference between the USA and the EU is that despite America actually being a single country there doesn't seem to be the same inclination to stop States from competing against each other.

    Texas is quite happy to go out of its way to attract investment away from California.

    Whenever a company like Tesla or Amazon are looking to build a new base of operations then cities and states basically whore themselves in an auction to see who can be most attractive for it.

    The USA views competition as a healthy thing, the EU does not. That is why the USA is and the EU is not successful.

    If post-Brexit the EU start to view themselves in competition with the UK [as they did in the vaccines debacle] then that might make life better for both Europeans and Brits in the end.

    Competition makes us become the best versions of ourselves.

    It's argued that H. sapiens ability to work together in reasonably large groups was a significant part of the reason for it's success vis-a-vis the Neanderthals, Denisovians etc.
    Absolutely and 67 million people is a reasonably large group to be working with. Its possibly too large still.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746

    Charles said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Politics For All
    @PoliticsForAlI
    NEW: Forcing GPs to do more face-to-face appointments is ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’, the head of the British Medical Association has said

    Via @Telegraph
    7:30 PM · Oct 17, 2021"

    Let me get this straight. Asking GPs to do the work they were doing before Covid struck is "harassment" and "discrimination"?



    Yes. The poor dears might meet sick people.
    Change is coming, but it’s going to be a few years yet. Last couple of years have seen increased cohorts into medical schools, to finally increase the flow of new doctors. Supply and demand. The bma has kept training low for far too long.
    I understand people are still scared of Covid, that’s natural. But doctors I think need to understand that while e-consult, and phone triage will work great for many patients, it won’t for all, and they need to care for all.
    I concluded long ago that my GP was useless. This was after I went to see them about a hearing difficulty for my last in-person consultation and was told in a patronising but very insistent way that I needed to eat more fish. It turned out that the doctor thought I was someone else.

    Eventually when the found out what I was there for I was immediately referred to a consultant at the hospital, who I eventually saw 6 months later and who told me that there was nothing wrong with me and I was wasting his time.

    The e -consultations system now in place is useful, in that I needed a sick note for work and the doctor was very happy to comply after 5 minutes on the phone; they offered to sign me off for 'up to 2 months' without any examination.

    I think as someone said the other day, if it is really serious go to A and E. I get the feeling that the GP system has mostly become a very expensive type of social services.

  • Jonathan said:

    Jonathan said:

    Good morning, everyone.

    Anyone seen anything about the Chinese hypersonic missile?

    Sounds like the opening to a bad joke, but it isn’t.

    Anecdote alert…

    Last week I was working with a consultancy in China, helping us with some aspects of our business. What was interesting was a barely concealed contempt for European (inc U.K.) technology. China is a ‘digital economy’ (unlike Europe) and that things ‘move so much more slowly in the West’. Chinese customers have ‘far greater expectations’ than Europeans.

    Whether true or not, the attitude is clear. We in the west are at the wrong end of another industrial revolution.

    We should be concerned.
    Its one of the reasons why Brexit became so necessary in the end.

    The delusional belief that Europe is the only continent that matters, and that we can shut away the rest of the world so long as we stop competing with each other in Europe has led to the failed attitudes that led to @DecrepitJohnL mocking us standing up to China - and to things like GDPR being taken as the way to deal with technology instead of innovation.

    There's a reason "unicorns" come from the USA, China and the UK and we're right post-Brexit to go hunting for more unicorns and not sign up to levelling down Europe Only madness.
    Not sure the political and economic fragmentation of Europe helps us much.
    If it wakes us out of our slumber and encourages competition instead of seeing how we can eliminate competition by having "common standards" [that the Chinese etc don't sign up to] then I think it helps tremendously.
    Good morning everyone. Def. Autumn here today.

    Mr T, surely the point about British-European unity is that we have a greater number of people to co-operate on an idea. You might argue that a country of 60 million will be, in some way, more 'nimble, intellectually, than one of 1.4 billion, but in the larger one there are more people to test one's ideas against.
    ‘a country of 60 million will be, in some way, more nimble intellectually’

    Raab came on the radio while I was reading your post, somewhat diminishing that hypothesis.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 43,608
    Nigelb said:

    Cyclefree said:

    Andy_JS said:

    "Politics For All
    @PoliticsForAlI
    NEW: Forcing GPs to do more face-to-face appointments is ‘harassment’ and ‘discrimination’, the head of the British Medical Association has said

    Via @Telegraph
    7:30 PM · Oct 17, 2021"

    Let me get this straight. Asking GPs to do the work they were doing before Covid struck is "harassment" and "discrimination"?
    Not quite. Here is what the BMA boss tweeted and that the Telegraph is responding to.

    No other part of NHS is subject to access league tables blaming them for workforce shortages, publicly shaming with patient feedback texts, & CQC hit squads blaming them for failing. If general practice was an employee, it would claim harassment, discrimination, victimisation
    https://twitter.com/CNagpaul/status/1449667564653748225
    But it's an employer, not employee.
    And a commissioner of healthcare into the bargain.
    Why should it be viewed as 'an employee' ?
    I have had a number of interesting discussions with NHS doctors - the ones who have worked exclusively for the NHS have an interesting perspective, to say the least. The short version is that the NHS is, by modern middle class employment standards, a terrible employer.

    Hmmm... is the NHS on Glassdoor?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    One interesting difference between the USA and the EU is that despite America actually being a single country there doesn't seem to be the same inclination to stop States from competing against each other.

    Texas is quite happy to go out of its way to attract investment away from California.

    Whenever a company like Tesla or Amazon are looking to build a new base of operations then cities and states basically whore themselves in an auction to see who can be most attractive for it.

    The USA views competition as a healthy thing, the EU does not. That is why the USA is and the EU is not successful.

    If post-Brexit the EU start to view themselves in competition with the UK [as they did in the vaccines debacle] then that might make life better for both Europeans and Brits in the end.

    Competition makes us become the best versions of ourselves.

    It's argued that H. sapiens ability to work together in reasonably large groups was a significant part of the reason for it's success vis-a-vis the Neanderthals, Denisovians etc.
    Absolutely and 67 million people is a reasonably large group to be working with. Its possibly too large still.
    Careful; you'll wake Malc!

    You were commenting elsewhere that in the US individual States seemed to compete for investment; I've always envisaged a similar sort of set up in North and Western Europe, which has more of a common heritage (except for the fact that Dad or Grandad upped sticks to cross the Atlantic) than the USA.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    One interesting difference between the USA and the EU is that despite America actually being a single country there doesn't seem to be the same inclination to stop States from competing against each other.

    Texas is quite happy to go out of its way to attract investment away from California.

    Whenever a company like Tesla or Amazon are looking to build a new base of operations then cities and states basically whore themselves in an auction to see who can be most attractive for it.

    The USA views competition as a healthy thing, the EU does not. That is why the USA is and the EU is not successful.

    If post-Brexit the EU start to view themselves in competition with the UK [as they did in the vaccines debacle] then that might make life better for both Europeans and Brits in the end.

    Competition makes us become the best versions of ourselves.

    The EU however, regards the end result of the American scheme (unaffordable subsidies, tax incentives and grants) as things that should be limited rather than used in a race to the bottom when it's known most subsidy seeking firms will walk away the moment the subsidy has been used and on to the next foolish state.
  • Sandpit said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Farooq said:

    Leon said:

    Sitrep GoriLlas Order

    THIS IS RIDICULOUS

    As I said, I downloaded the app half an hour ago. Took 1 minute to set it up with Apple Pay

    I just, as a test, ordered 1 bottle of red wine. A decent Trivento Reserve Malbec. £8 at Sainsbury's. £8 + £.180 delivery from Gorillas

    This is 10pm on a Sunday

    I ordered it, as in clicking my phone, at 9.54pm. The app said "it will be there in 9 minutes". And it was. I have just collected it at the door. THE PROCESS FROM ORDER TO DELIVERY TOOK 9 MINUTES

    That's amazing. You can easily wait longer than that at a bar.
    I am surrounded by decent or very good shops that open late. Within 5-7 minutes walk of me there is a Co-op, a Tesco Extra, a Whole Foods, M&S Foods, and an Aldi. Within 10 minutes walk is a big Sainsburys and a very big Morrisons

    Even on a Sunday the Co=op and Whole Foods are open until 9 or 11pm. And there are dodgy tiny stores which sell basic stuff 24/7/356, on my streetcorners

    Yet none of them can match the convenience of this. I can order a rather decent bottle of red at 10pm on Sunday and it is here in 9 minutes? Even if Tesco Extra is open this late on Sunday AND it has that nice red it would take me 25 minutes to complete the process of walking down, finding it, buying it, coming back

    It is quite revolutionary IF IT IS SUSTAINABLE
    Yeah, and honestly from my quiet corner of rural Aberdeenshire, I wouldn't swap. But things like this get me all excited and a part of me yearns to have anything even vaguely approaching that.
    Consider me low-key jealous.
    I also live in the quiet bits of Aberdeenshire, but thats not really the issue here.

    All of these "delivery in 10 minutes" services will be gone within a year or two. They are preposterously unsustainable and there is literally no way to make money from them As long as VC money keeps flowing in they can operate. As soon as it stops they fold - OR impose the cost of operations on their customers and Sean stops ordering wine at TooLateO'Clock on a Sunday.

    All the supermarkets know that people want a shop at the end of their garden that sells everything. Firstly with online delivery and now this madness they are trying to fulfil those desires. But in reality it loses everyone money, is massively disruptive to operations (having a horde of people hanging round your store then literally running round it when their phone buzzes GO) and feels a bit faddy.

    If anyone feels like investing, stick your money in any of them trialling robots. There is almost no chance that this army of jobbers on bikes will be doing it long term, they are just human robots standing in to test a business model before actual robots take over. Various trials already happening of automated delivery bots, once they perfect the tech thats all these people working for all these cash-haemmoraging start-ups gone.
    Agreed - apart from the robots.

    There might be a few pilot schemes of robots at trade fairs, or in a single office block in the City, but there’s no way they’ll be on the streets until there’s no people on the streets. The issue isn’t the tech, it’s the idiotic people. Look at how many Western cities have abandoned scooter rentals, because drunk people think they belong in the canal or a skip. Asian markets may of course be different.
    There are robot deliveries in Milton Keynes.
    Yes and that is the trial I had in mind when I said robots. Lets be clear this absolutely isn't going to work everywhere. But neither is an army of minimum wage slaves on bikes stood waiting at the 24 hour supermarket / takeaway for Sean to get the munchies.

    This is going to sound like heresy to some of you. But moving out to the sticks means you have to plan a shop. Like we always used to do. We have a village McColls where you can exchange an arm for last minute products. For anything else its a trip down into the Broch (24 mile round trip) or Costco in Aberdeen (90 mile round trip). You spend less money with a planned shop than when you can anything any time.
This discussion has been closed.