Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
The single scariest thing I have ever read is The Monkey's Paw, a Victorian short story by W W Jacobs. It's only about 5 pages long but it manages to induce real skin crawling dread by the end
The other day I noticed there's a plaque to W W Jacobs around the corner from my flat. A local lad
I'm on a train from Ipswich to Darsham at the moment and to get here I have been on several trains and recently I was on several to start and end my cycling holiday and something I have noticed is the conductors all seem to have got a lot happier and friendly. Obviously been on charm courses.
Makes my day a bit happier.
I've noticed this too. It might be due to pay rises and a strong labour market - people working in customer service roles actually like doing it?
OTOH, I had some drinks with some old friends working in retail (outdoor stuff) and apparently customers are even bigger arseholes than usual, leaving people in tears. The "I'll get my manager" button gets pressed much more more often, and managers are taking no prisoners in the defence as it's so hard to retain staff as it is.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
It’s the funny bones.
Apropos the earlier discussion, Mr Bean is known in pretty much every country in the world, because there was almost no translation necessary. Very few spoken words, in the whole series.
Weirdly, never liked it.
But it's the same principal as the biggest movie hits often being simplistic in theme and explosion heavy, since enjoying people running through exciting action translates well.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
Yep. He had the same gift (and he was apparently a miserable bastard in real life)
"Hitchhikers was one of the first books I read that made me laugh out loud"
+++++
Books that make me laugh OUT LOUD with mere words are so rare I can name nearly all of them
P G Wodehouse in general One immortal line in The Granton Star Cause by Irvine Welsh (a short story) The near plane crash scene in Martin Amis' The Information Ham on Rye by Bukowski There's a very good joke halfway through Joyce's Ulysses Evelyn Waugh at his most waspish, maybe Early Bill Bryson
After that I struggle
Have you tried Tom Sharpe?
Yes, didn't work for me. But I am very hard to please and /I am setting a high bar: I mean books that actually make me guffaw - a proper belly laugh - not a smile and a titter, not a witty line that makes me slightly chuckle
This is a good list and has reminded me of a couple of others
David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
With you on Catch 22 - more laughs in that than in all the other books I've read combined, I reckon.
How about J.P. Donleavy - Ginger Man and others? I'd have thought you may like his lewd hilarity?
Liked Donleavy, but no belly laughs, no
There must be some obscure psychological reason why it is so hard to evoke laughter just with sentences on a page, yet so easy for even an average stand up comic on a stage. Something about timing, and body language, and seeing a face and gestures?
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
Laughter is a collective activity, like yawning. Comedians or movies are less funny watched alone
Comedy is designed to be experienced live.
Online comedy kept me sane during the pandemic, but nothing beats being in the room - whether it’s at a 50-seat local room, or a 5,000 seat arena.
"Hitchhikers was one of the first books I read that made me laugh out loud"
+++++
Books that make me laugh OUT LOUD with mere words are so rare I can name nearly all of them
P G Wodehouse in general One immortal line in The Granton Star Cause by Irvine Welsh (a short story) The near plane crash scene in Martin Amis' The Information Ham on Rye by Bukowski There's a very good joke halfway through Joyce's Ulysses Evelyn Waugh at his most waspish, maybe Early Bill Bryson
After that I struggle
Did you ever read Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James? I had to stop reading it on the Tube because I kept laughing out loud. I still remember his description of what happened when an army trainee loaded a mortar shell upside down into the barrel.
And I remember the description of the boyfriend of the girl he was secretly dating -'...Not exactly a thug, but unlikely ever to be mistaken for The Bishop of Bath & Wells.'
SCOTUS is having a busy week. In the 303 Creative case, it ruled that a web designer can refuse commissions for same-sex weddings. News report from "The Hill" below
Supreme Court rules web designer can refuse same-sex weddings BY THEHILL.COM - 06/30/23 10:05 AM ET
Summary: The Supreme Court decided in favor of a web designer who wanted to refuse clients celebrating marriages she does not endorse, stating that it violated her free speech rights under the First Amendment
The emerging line on this appears to be that the provision of a basic service, such as a hotel room or retail goods business, is not allowed to be discriminatory; but the provision of a creative service, such as a wedding cake or a website, can take into account the views of the artist. IMHO that does appear to be a reasonable compromise.
Isn't that what we have here? I seem to recall the UK gay cake case went differently to a US one.
Agree on horror writing. I can certainly enjoy a spooky tale, but I’ve never found them thrilling or scary like a horror film (horror being the ‘filmiest’ of all film genres, but that’s another topic).
Humour writing I tend to have genteel appreciation for rather than laughing out loud. The few authors who have raised genuine lulz from me are:
Bill Bryson (especially A Walk In The Woods) David Sedaris ‘Alan Partridge’ (I.E. the Gibbons brothers who wrote his autobiography) Jonathan Meades Terry Pratchett
I have to break with consensus on Hitchhikers - I found it dull and self-satisfied.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
Yep. He had the same gift (and he was apparently a miserable bastard in real life)
I remember as a kid watching Tommy Cooper. As soon as his face appeared, my late father got a fit of the giggles and just kept laughing until the end of the show, regardless of content.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
A fellow comedian once said to Tommy 'It's easy for you. You just have to go on stage and people start laughing.'
TC replied 'If only you knew what it took for me to even walk out on stage.'
SCOTUS is having a busy week. In the 303 Creative case, it ruled that a web designer can refuse commissions for same-sex weddings. News report from "The Hill" below
Supreme Court rules web designer can refuse same-sex weddings BY THEHILL.COM - 06/30/23 10:05 AM ET
Summary: The Supreme Court decided in favor of a web designer who wanted to refuse clients celebrating marriages she does not endorse, stating that it violated her free speech rights under the First Amendment
The emerging line on this appears to be that the provision of a basic service, such as a hotel room or retail goods business, is not allowed to be discriminatory; but the provision of a creative service, such as a wedding cake or a website, can take into account the views of the artist. IMHO that does appear to be a reasonable compromise.
Isn't that what we have here? I seem to recall the UK gay cake case went differently to a US one.
They ended up going the same way, but with a lot of different verdicts in lower courts and appellate courts beforehand.
"Hitchhikers was one of the first books I read that made me laugh out loud"
+++++
Books that make me laugh OUT LOUD with mere words are so rare I can name nearly all of them
P G Wodehouse in general One immortal line in The Granton Star Cause by Irvine Welsh (a short story) The near plane crash scene in Martin Amis' The Information Ham on Rye by Bukowski There's a very good joke halfway through Joyce's Ulysses Evelyn Waugh at his most waspish, maybe Early Bill Bryson
After that I struggle
Have you tried Tom Sharpe?
Yes, didn't work for me. But I am very hard to please and /I am setting a high bar: I mean books that actually make me guffaw - a proper belly laugh - not a smile and a titter, not a witty line that makes me slightly chuckle
This is a good list and has reminded me of a couple of others
David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Catch 22 is good, but more of a snigger for me. We obviously both have differing levels of titillation.
I know what you mean. Did I actually laugh OUT LOUD when reading Catch 22? I think I did, or is that me misremembering my appreciation of the intense wittiness? Also it could be me actually remembering Catch 22 the movie, which did definitely make me laugh, but then laughing at a movie is a daily occurrence
Doing it just with words on paper - thats the fiendishly difficult thing. It's what makes Wodehouse such a genius
This book always travels with me - I have read it a hundred times and it never fails to make me laugh. On the joint worst day of my life I had it on my flight and despite the absolute zombified state of hell I was in I read it and laughed even if nothing else in the world was good. I can just pick a particular story out of it and everything g is ok.
I am exactly the same. If I am seriously unhappy I have two reading choices, I either go for absolute total misery - books about World War 1, or the Holocaust - which give me perspective. Or I read Wodehouse and I laugh, despite everything
A very entertaining chat! And now I must hie me to the shops, therewith to buy tucker
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
Yep. He had the same gift (and he was apparently a miserable bastard in real life)
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
Yep. He had the same gift (and he was apparently a miserable bastard in real life)
My Mam used to drink in his local when she was a Student. She endorses your message. She also says he was unbelievably hilarious. He spent the first 20 minutes pretending he couldn't find a way through the backstage curtain. And guffawing. By which stage the audience was in pieces.
Agree on horror writing. I can certainly enjoy a spooky tale, but I’ve never found them thrilling or scary like a horror film (horror being the ‘filmiest’ of all film genres, but that’s another topic).
Humour writing I tend to have genteel appreciation for rather than laughing out loud. The few authors who have raised genuine lulz from me are:
Bill Bryson (especially A Walk In The Woods) David Sedaris ‘Alan Partridge’ (I.E. the Gibbons brothers who wrote his autobiography) Jonathan Meades Terry Pratchett
I have to break with consensus on Hitchhikers - I found it dull and self-satisfied.
David Sedaris is excellent although I’ve never read him and only listened to him reading his work on R4. And Jonathan Meades tv programmes are wonderful.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
A fellow comedian once said to Tommy 'It's easy for you. You just have to go on stage and people start laughing.'
TC replied 'If only you knew what it took for me to even walk out on stage.'
That’s very true. Many of those who make us laugh, are screwed-up individuals with a lot of trauma in their lives. Rates of suicide among comics, are very high compared to the general population.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
A fellow comedian once said to Tommy 'It's easy for you. You just have to go on stage and people start laughing.'
TC replied 'If only you knew what it took for me to even walk out on stage.'
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
The Meaming of Liff was very clever, as well. And insghtful
I always remember
"Glasgow: the sense of infinite sadness when you enter a room full of happy, noisy people fifteen years younger than you"
Aberystwyth (n.) A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for.
Woking. Standing in the kitchen wondering why you came in.
Ely. The first tiny inkling that something somewhere has gone terribly wrong.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
A fellow comedian once said to Tommy 'It's easy for you. You just have to go on stage and people start laughing.'
TC replied 'If only you knew what it took for me to even walk out on stage.'
That’s very true. Many of those who make us laugh, are screwed-up individuals with a lot of trauma in their lives. Rates of suicide among comics, are very high compared to the general population.
Eric Morecambe seems to be a rare exception. Apparently had a sunny, happy disposition in real life, as much as on stage
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
The Meaming of Liff was very clever, as well. And insghtful
I always remember
"Glasgow: the sense of infinite sadness when you enter a room full of happy, noisy people fifteen years younger than you"
Aberystwyth (n.) A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for.
Woking. Standing in the kitchen wondering why you came in.
Ely. The first tiny inkling that something somewhere has gone terribly wrong.
Do you know about Ely's history with regards to Hereward's rebellion against Billy the Bastard? I'm sure William got exactly that feeling, and I'm wondering whether that's what's motivated your observation?
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
A fellow comedian once said to Tommy 'It's easy for you. You just have to go on stage and people start laughing.'
TC replied 'If only you knew what it took for me to even walk out on stage.'
I was watching Tommy when he died on stage
He was a great comedian - RIP
One of my favourite jokes was a TC one, a bit of a visual one so will do my best.
TC: Doctor, every time I do this it hurts (TC places finger on eye).
Very hard to induce real scares with mere words...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is psychological horror, presumably not scary enough for 2023, but interesting nonetheless. The text is here.
Neal Shusterman's "Unwind" is a YA novel (I haven't read it, just the online excerpt) which isn't scary but does have an unsettling passage when a character is unwound, and the table keeps getting smaller... Here is the text.
Nicholas DiChario’s “The Winterberry”. It helps if you don't know who the person is, although it is obvious. Here is the text..
Patricia Highsmith's “The Quest for ‘Blank Claveringi’” is a horror story about giant snails, that got to me as a child. The snails are slow, but the island is small and you have to sleep sometime... I don't know what I'd think of it now and I don't have the text.
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
Except when he enters Russian Troll mode.
I mean that's fair. I can't say I agree with everything or even most of what he says, but I know talent when I see it.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
Yep. He had the same gift (and he was apparently a miserable bastard in real life)
Whilst in London thirty years ago, I knew a guy my age who was trying to break into comedy. He was *incredibly* funny whilst in a crowd, and online. He could make a room laugh with one sentence.
Yet get him alone, and he was a totally different character. Morose, thoughtful, and incredibly quiet. He had a totally different - and somewhat nicer - personae.
I don't think he ever made it into the big time, sadly.
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
The best laughs on PB were in the earlier days. It was like the Wild West with an anything goes approach. Slowly the legalities have reined that in. But I would literally have tears running down my cheeks at some of the spats. Sean and tim were always excellent value.
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
The Meaming of Liff was very clever, as well. And insghtful
I always remember
"Glasgow: the sense of infinite sadness when you enter a room full of happy, noisy people fifteen years younger than you"
Aberystwyth (n.) A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for.
Woking. Standing in the kitchen wondering why you came in.
Ely. The first tiny inkling that something somewhere has gone terribly wrong.
Do you know about Ely's history with regards to Hereward's rebellion against Billy the Bastard? I'm sure William got exactly that feeling, and I'm wondering whether that's what's motivated your observation?
As you have brought Hereward to a comedy discussion there is a very good Penny Dreadfuls episode on BBC Sounds on Hereward as well as their take on Richard III.
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
The single scariest thing I have ever read is The Monkey's Paw, a Victorian short story by W W Jacobs. It's only about 5 pages long but it manages to induce real skin crawling dread by the end
The other day I noticed there's a plaque to W W Jacobs around the corner from my flat. A local lad
Been remade in film several times I think. Yes, it's a classic
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
Can you imaging being really famous for being funny, and having all these wankers coming up to you all the time, hearing your best lines stumbling half-aborted out of the pie-crumbed mouths? If you weren't depressed before, you'd soon make a hard landing into that dark pit.
I can't think of anything worse than being famous. Luckily, I have no discernible talent so it'll never happen to me.
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
HYUFD is grotesquely funny sometimes.
Roger is a great spoof character, who manages to sustain the act in person.
Can you imaging being really famous for being funny, and having all these wankers coming up to you all the time, hearing your best lines stumbling half-aborted out of the pie-crumbed mouths? If you weren't depressed before, you'd soon make a hard landing into that dark pit.
I can't think of anything worse than being famous. Luckily, I have no discernible talent so it'll never happen to me.
Well if it’s any consolation you’re a much cheerier contributor than you were when you first arrived. You’ve become good company when you used to be a miserablist saddo
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
Very good at the spine-tingling sense of dread. H. P. Lovecraft could bring that together too. The R4 versions of "At The Mountains of Madness" and "Shadow Over Innsmouth" are worth a listen to get a good shiver.
I think the only novel that's ever made me gasp out loud in suspense/terror is "Watcher in the Shadows" by Geoffrey Household of Rogue Male fame.
Can you imaging being really famous for being funny, and having all these wankers coming up to you all the time, hearing your best lines stumbling half-aborted out of the pie-crumbed mouths? If you weren't depressed before, you'd soon make a hard landing into that dark pit.
I can't think of anything worse than being famous. Luckily, I have no discernible talent so it'll never happen to me.
There's quite a good dream/nightmare scene in one of The Trip series where Steve Coogan is confronted by someone just saying 'Ah-haaaa!' over and over, much to his horror. Followed up by a traditional British "You absolute c****nt!!!" as I remember.
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
The single scariest thing I have ever read is The Monkey's Paw, a Victorian short story by W W Jacobs. It's only about 5 pages long but it manages to induce real skin crawling dread by the end
The other day I noticed there's a plaque to W W Jacobs around the corner from my flat. A local lad
WW Jacobs wrote hundreds of short stories, many of them great and harmless fun, and none that I know of anything like the Monkey's Paw, which seems to stand alone. Unforgettable. I was introduced to him by my father who loved him; I still do.
BTW, writing to make you laugh out loud: Three Men in a Boat. (The medical dictionary, Uncle Podger's picture, the tin of pineapple and lots more). Jerome;s Diary of a Pilgrimage is also worth reading. (But not his awful novels).
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
Very good at the spine-tingling sense of dread. H. P. Lovecraft could bring that together too. The R4 versions of "At The Mountains of Madness" and "Shadow Over Innsmouth" are worth a listen to get a good shiver.
I think the only novel that's ever made me gasp out loud in suspense/terror is "Watcher in the Shadows" by Geoffrey Household of Rogue Male fame.
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
The single scariest thing I have ever read is The Monkey's Paw, a Victorian short story by W W Jacobs. It's only about 5 pages long but it manages to induce real skin crawling dread by the end
The other day I noticed there's a plaque to W W Jacobs around the corner from my flat. A local lad
Been remade in film several times I think. Yes, it's a classic
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
The best laughs on PB were in the earlier days. It was like the Wild West with an anything goes approach. Slowly the legalities have reined that in. But I would literally have tears running down my cheeks at some of the spats. Sean and tim were always excellent value.
Do you remember Martin Day? He used to make me LOL because he was SO insane. I could never work out if he was a spoof or actually deranged. I hope the former
Can you imaging being really famous for being funny, and having all these wankers coming up to you all the time, hearing your best lines stumbling half-aborted out of the pie-crumbed mouths? If you weren't depressed before, you'd soon make a hard landing into that dark pit.
I can't think of anything worse than being famous. Luckily, I have no discernible talent so it'll never happen to me.
Well if it’s any consolation you’re a much cheerier contributor than you were when you first arrived. You’ve become good company when you used to be a miserablist saddo
(This is good btw)
What happened?!
Based on comments down thread why don’t you write comedy ?
I still quote your comments on khat - “ like chewing a privet hedge for the high of a double espresso “
Can you imaging being really famous for being funny, and having all these wankers coming up to you all the time, hearing your best lines stumbling half-aborted out of the pie-crumbed mouths? If you weren't depressed before, you'd soon make a hard landing into that dark pit.
I can't think of anything worse than being famous. Luckily, I have no discernible talent so it'll never happen to me.
Well if it’s any consolation you’re a much cheerier contributor than you were when you first arrived. You’ve become good company when you used to be a miserablist saddo
(This is good btw)
What happened?!
Based on comments down thread why don’t you write comedy ?
I still quote your comments on khat - “ like chewing a privet hedge for the high of a double espresso “
Genius
Well gosh that’s very kind of you. And overly flattering
I am experimenting with some possibly amusing long form stuff. Can’t say more than that
"Hitchhikers was one of the first books I read that made me laugh out loud"
+++++
Books that make me laugh OUT LOUD with mere words are so rare I can name nearly all of them
P G Wodehouse in general One immortal line in The Granton Star Cause by Irvine Welsh (a short story) The near plane crash scene in Martin Amis' The Information Ham on Rye by Bukowski There's a very good joke halfway through Joyce's Ulysses Evelyn Waugh at his most waspish, maybe Early Bill Bryson
After that I struggle
Have you tried Tom Sharpe?
Yes, didn't work for me. But I am very hard to please and /I am setting a high bar: I mean books that actually make me guffaw - a proper belly laugh - not a smile and a titter, not a witty line that makes me slightly chuckle
This is a good list and has reminded me of a couple of others
David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Catch 22 is good, but more of a snigger for me. We obviously both have differing levels of titillation.
I know what you mean. Did I actually laugh OUT LOUD when reading Catch 22? I think I did, or is that me misremembering my appreciation of the intense wittiness? Also it could be me actually remembering Catch 22 the movie, which did definitely make me laugh, but then laughing at a movie is a daily occurrence
Doing it just with words on paper - thats the fiendishly difficult thing. It's what makes Wodehouse such a genius
This book always travels with me - I have read it a hundred times and it never fails to make me laugh. On the joint worst day of my life I had it on my flight and despite the absolute zombified state of hell I was in I read it and laughed even if nothing else in the world was good. I can just pick a particular story out of it and everything g is ok.
I am exactly the same. If I am seriously unhappy I have two reading choices, I either go for absolute total misery - books about World War 1, or the Holocaust - which give me perspective. Or I read Wodehouse and I laugh, despite everything
A very entertaining chat! And now I must hie me to the shops, therewith to buy tucker
'The Great Sermon Handicap' (one of the linked short stories in The Inimitable Jeeves, total masterpiece) - along with James Joyce's 'The Dead', the two greatest short stories ever.
Wodehouse's 'Uncle Fred Flits By' runs a close second.
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
Very good at the spine-tingling sense of dread. H. P. Lovecraft could bring that together too. The R4 versions of "At The Mountains of Madness" and "Shadow Over Innsmouth" are worth a listen to get a good shiver.
I think the only novel that's ever made me gasp out loud in suspense/terror is "Watcher in the Shadows" by Geoffrey Household of Rogue Male fame.
Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows is brilliant for formless dread. It’s scary and upsetting yet you don’t quite know why
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
The best laughs on PB were in the earlier days. It was like the Wild West with an anything goes approach. Slowly the legalities have reined that in. But I would literally have tears running down my cheeks at some of the spats. Sean and tim were always excellent value.
Do you remember Martin Day? He used to make me LOL because he was SO insane. I could never work out if he was a spoof or actually deranged. I hope the former
Yes but I joined in 2009 so saw less of him. Young Eagles was great with a turn of phrase before he joined the mods and when we had the full Indy ref crew all bets were off. Hugely entertaining but thought provoking at the same time.
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
Very good at the spine-tingling sense of dread. H. P. Lovecraft could bring that together too. The R4 versions of "At The Mountains of Madness" and "Shadow Over Innsmouth" are worth a listen to get a good shiver.
I think the only novel that's ever made me gasp out loud in suspense/terror is "Watcher in the Shadows" by Geoffrey Household of Rogue Male fame.
Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows is brilliant for formless dread. It’s scary and upsetting yet you don’t quite know why
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
The single scariest thing I have ever read is The Monkey's Paw, a Victorian short story by W W Jacobs. It's only about 5 pages long but it manages to induce real skin crawling dread by the end
The other day I noticed there's a plaque to W W Jacobs around the corner from my flat. A local lad
WW Jacobs wrote hundreds of short stories, many of them great and harmless fun, and none that I know of anything like the Monkey's Paw, which seems to stand alone. Unforgettable. I was introduced to him by my father who loved him; I still do.
BTW, writing to make you laugh out loud: Three Men in a Boat. (The medical dictionary, Uncle Podger's picture, the tin of pineapple and lots more). Jerome;s Diary of a Pilgrimage is also worth reading. (But not his awful novels).
3MiB is superb. And our biology teacher at school used to read Paw out aloud to us in the last lesson before Christmas.
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
The single scariest thing I have ever read is The Monkey's Paw, a Victorian short story by W W Jacobs. It's only about 5 pages long but it manages to induce real skin crawling dread by the end
The other day I noticed there's a plaque to W W Jacobs around the corner from my flat. A local lad
Ugh! The stench was disgusting! Gathering up all his strength, SeanT tried to lift himself up off the floor of the dark, filthy prison cell he found himself in. And then, all of a sudden, he felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his left buttock, and his trousers started peeling apart! Pain rapidly increased in intensity, causing SeanT to scream as loud as he could, but the relentless agony soon blacked him out, and the poor chap fell senseless onto the blood-stained cobbles. Only then did the malicious Bum-Throbber emerge from SeanT's trousers, another victim for it to feast on...
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
Very good at the spine-tingling sense of dread. H. P. Lovecraft could bring that together too. The R4 versions of "At The Mountains of Madness" and "Shadow Over Innsmouth" are worth a listen to get a good shiver.
I think the only novel that's ever made me gasp out loud in suspense/terror is "Watcher in the Shadows" by Geoffrey Household of Rogue Male fame.
Algernon Blackwood’s The Willows is brilliant for formless dread. It’s scary and upsetting yet you don’t quite know why
:: Adds to summer holiday reading list ::
It’s a short story so it will only last a bus ride. But definitely worth it
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
The best laughs on PB were in the earlier days. It was like the Wild West with an anything goes approach. Slowly the legalities have reined that in. But I would literally have tears running down my cheeks at some of the spats. Sean and tim were always excellent value.
Do you remember Martin Day? He used to make me LOL because he was SO insane. I could never work out if he was a spoof or actually deranged. I hope the former
Big fan of the Lib Dems if I remember correctly ;-)
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
The best laughs on PB were in the earlier days. It was like the Wild West with an anything goes approach. Slowly the legalities have reined that in. But I would literally have tears running down my cheeks at some of the spats. Sean and tim were always excellent value.
Do you remember Martin Day? He used to make me LOL because he was SO insane. I could never work out if he was a spoof or actually deranged. I hope the former
Big fan of the Lib Dems if I remember correctly ;-)
Hah. Yes he was!
Tim could be superbly biting. I think there was a genuine streak of sadism in him, which helped
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
Very good at the spine-tingling sense of dread. H. P. Lovecraft could bring that together too. The R4 versions of "At The Mountains of Madness" and "Shadow Over Innsmouth" are worth a listen to get a good shiver.
I think the only novel that's ever made me gasp out loud in suspense/terror is "Watcher in the Shadows" by Geoffrey Household of Rogue Male fame.
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
Very good at the spine-tingling sense of dread. H. P. Lovecraft could bring that together too. The R4 versions of "At The Mountains of Madness" and "Shadow Over Innsmouth" are worth a listen to get a good shiver.
I think the only novel that's ever made me gasp out loud in suspense/terror is "Watcher in the Shadows" by Geoffrey Household of Rogue Male fame.
Same goes for terror. Very hard to induce real scares with mere words. So much easier in a movie when you can use light and dark and music and everything else
Only four or five books/stories have ever actually scared me
I've seen it suggested that it's easier to be scared by stories if you're the sort of person who pictures vivid images in their head when they read. (I don't have much mental imagery at all so I wouldn't know.)
MR James was a genius at this.
The single scariest thing I have ever read is The Monkey's Paw, a Victorian short story by W W Jacobs. It's only about 5 pages long but it manages to induce real skin crawling dread by the end
The other day I noticed there's a plaque to W W Jacobs around the corner from my flat. A local lad
Been remade in film several times I think. Yes, it's a classic
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
And Tommy Cooper.
A fellow comedian once said to Tommy 'It's easy for you. You just have to go on stage and people start laughing.'
TC replied 'If only you knew what it took for me to even walk out on stage.'
That’s very true. Many of those who make us laugh, are screwed-up individuals with a lot of trauma in their lives. Rates of suicide among comics, are very high compared to the general population.
Yes a friend is a standup comic and he was amazed how many broken personalities he met when he hung out with fellow comedians.
He said only doing mid-life dating after he got divored did he meet more.
Can you imaging being really famous for being funny, and having all these wankers coming up to you all the time, hearing your best lines stumbling half-aborted out of the pie-crumbed mouths? If you weren't depressed before, you'd soon make a hard landing into that dark pit.
I can't think of anything worse than being famous. Luckily, I have no discernible talent so it'll never happen to me.
Well if it’s any consolation you’re a much cheerier contributor than you were when you first arrived. You’ve become good company when you used to be a miserablist saddo
(This is good btw)
What happened?!
Based on comments down thread why don’t you write comedy ?
I still quote your comments on khat - “ like chewing a privet hedge for the high of a double espresso “
Genius
I asked the same question earlier. I think @leon would be good at it.
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
The best laughs on PB were in the earlier days. It was like the Wild West with an anything goes approach. Slowly the legalities have reined that in. But I would literally have tears running down my cheeks at some of the spats. Sean and tim were always excellent value.
Do you remember Martin Day? He used to make me LOL because he was SO insane. I could never work out if he was a spoof or actually deranged. I hope the former
Big fan of the Lib Dems if I remember correctly ;-)
It is a prerequisite of us LDs to be a bit bonkers.
Can you imaging being really famous for being funny, and having all these wankers coming up to you all the time, hearing your best lines stumbling half-aborted out of the pie-crumbed mouths? If you weren't depressed before, you'd soon make a hard landing into that dark pit.
I can't think of anything worse than being famous. Luckily, I have no discernible talent so it'll never happen to me.
Well if it’s any consolation you’re a much cheerier contributor than you were when you first arrived. You’ve become good company when you used to be a miserablist saddo
(This is good btw)
What happened?!
Based on comments down thread why don’t you write comedy ?
I still quote your comments on khat - “ like chewing a privet hedge for the high of a double espresso “
Genius
I asked the same question earlier. I think @leon would be good at it.
Yes, it was your comment I was referring to @leon does have a good turn of phrase
"And Prigozhin has now disbanded his fake news holding, leaving hundreds of fake news manufacturers, and likely thousands of trolls unemployed and unemployable. Expect waves of leaks from young people who suddenly found their conscience on the way out."
Another busy day - I see my observations on the first hour of the cricket turned out to be valid.
I'd also make the same point about tomorrow - we had a torrid first hour today, I suspect it'll be the Australian's turn tomorrow. Two or three quick wickets and especially if we can keep the target below 300 and we'll have a sniff but we'll need to go back to batting the Boycott way and not the Bazball way.
Looking at the usual rush of mid to end of week polls. Savanta will no doubt have encouraged some Conservatives - it looks on its own but I've not yet seen the tables so I'll take more of a view after that.
Techne has the Conservatives down a couple of points but it's all MoE - among the 65+ age group, the Conservative lead is seven (41-34) down from 47 at the 2019 election so that's a 20% swing. The 2016 LEAVE voters still have the Conservatives ahead 48-27 so that's an 18.5% swing among LEAVE voters from 2016.
Omnisis have MoE moves as well - the supplementaries aren't too bad for Sunak - again we wait the detailed tabs.
I suspect we'll see a slight but gradual improvement in Conservative VI through the summer - people generally are more mellow before and after their holidays but we are now 42 months into the Parliament so notions of mid term are moving behind us. Time is running out in every sense - the next challenge will be July 20th (not trying to be Valkyrist here). MY assumption is holding any of the three seats will be seen by the Conservatives as a success - IF all three are lost and are lost badly, the question is whether that will produce a response in the Conservative Parliamentary Party.
That in turn pre-supposes if there is any fight left in Tory MPs or whether they are in effect resigned to defeat at the next election. I'm sure there will be plenty of defiance in forums like this and on Twitter and elsewhere but there comes a point when "sauve qui peut" takes over.
Does anyone on here make you laugh out loud (in a good way)?
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
Very hard to induce real scares with mere words...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is psychological horror, presumably not scary enough for 2023, but interesting nonetheless. The text is here.
Neal Shusterman's "Unwind" is a YA novel (I haven't read it, just the online excerpt) which isn't scary but does have an unsettling passage when a character is unwound, and the table keeps getting smaller... Here is the text.
Nicholas DiChario’s “The Winterberry”. It helps if you don't know who the person is, although it is obvious. Here is the text..
Patricia Highsmith's “The Quest for ‘Blank Claveringi’” is a horror story about giant snails, that got to me as a child. The snails are slow, but the island is small and you have to sleep sometime... I don't know what I'd think of it now and I don't have the text.
Internet Archive (as so often) is your friend - in this case one of the 'borrowable' works rather than the ones permanently available/downloadable to keep.
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
His clever use of the English language always had me in stitches.
"Hitchhikers was one of the first books I read that made me laugh out loud"
+++++
Books that make me laugh OUT LOUD with mere words are so rare I can name nearly all of them
P G Wodehouse in general One immortal line in The Granton Star Cause by Irvine Welsh (a short story) The near plane crash scene in Martin Amis' The Information Ham on Rye by Bukowski There's a very good joke halfway through Joyce's Ulysses Evelyn Waugh at his most waspish, maybe Early Bill Bryson
After that I struggle
Have you tried Tom Sharpe?
Yes, didn't work for me. But I am very hard to please and /I am setting a high bar: I mean books that actually make me guffaw - a proper belly laugh - not a smile and a titter, not a witty line that makes me slightly chuckle
This is a good list and has reminded me of a couple of others
David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again
Zac Goldsmith has resigned his ministerial role to spend more time with his money.
No, he's genuinely primarily in politics for environmental issues and has been increasingly critical of the Government's approach (or non-approach). I've been surprised how long he's stayed on as a Minister. The fact that he's rich isn't relevant here.
He can afford to be an environmentalist. Many people are not so fortunate.
Can any of us afford to not be environmentalists?
Apart from the longer term 'saving the world' aspect, environmental practices (active/public transport where possible, reduced energy consumption, reducing and re-using) are cheaper than non-enviromental practices.
There are three costs associated with climate change - mitigation, adaptation and damage.
On mitigation, I'm very pessimistic, but think we should do it where the CBA is a slam dunk. This is particularly the case with transport due to massive positive externalities.
On adaptation, we need to get moving much more quickly. It holds an inverse relationship with damage.
On damage - I would be most concerned about health. It might not be affected as much as other areas, but a 5% increase in costs here dwarfs a 15% increase in fixing railway lines.
On mitigation, end use emissions in the UK are:
29% Transport (25% in 1990). Low hanging fruit, lots of positive externalities like obesity, air pollution, road noise, less road wear.
28% Business and industry (38% in 1990). Already made massive progress, but difficult to do more without slowing growth
23% Buildings (25% in 1990). Difficult again with gas supply etc
11% Agriculture (7% in 1990).
So hit transport hard to take the strain off everything else
Transportation is being hit hard by the switch to electric vehicles, its just going to take time to make the transition, but that fruit is inevitably getting plucked so is the last place that should be concentrated upon besides smoothing the transition such as dealing with how people are going to charge their vehicles if they don't have off-road parking - it is an already solved problem.
I'm curious how electric vehicles reduce obesity though.
It's not all about electric vehicles! 50% of all car trips in the UK are below 2 miles. That's a 12 minute cycle.
It is all about electric vehicles.
Those 50% of journeys make up a small fraction of emissions. Oddly enough a 90 mile journey creates far more emissions than a sub 2 mile journey does. And of course only small proportion of that half are suitable for being replaced with bike journeys anyway, if I drive 2 miles to the shops to fill my boot and then drive home again, I can't replace that with a bike ride.
In order to get to net zero we need to deal with all car trips and ensuring they're all clean, not just a small fraction of them.
Ride a bike because riding a bike is fun and healthy, not because of the planet. We need the planet to be able to cope with all journeys, not just the half of them that do the least damage anyway.
To me that's rather buying into the American idea that cycling is a leisure pursuit - it is not.
I mainly utility-cycle, but I can't cycle 4 miles for my occasional supermarket shop because the supermarket has no really safe cycle parking. Ditto the local hospital when I need a blood test. Ditto the local Doctor's surgery where I was this morning.
And if I want to use an off road route down a former local railway they it is blocked by "anti-motobike" barriers that don't block motobikes, but do block cycles, wheelchairs and mobility scooters (the latter two illegally since 2005). The Sustrans Audit in 2018 found 16,000 such barriers on their walking / wheeling / cycling network (of 13,000 miles).
The route to my local hospital even includes multiple pedestrian crossings where the chicanes in the middle are so narrow as to block mobility scooters. And no one notices.
We have about 50-80 years of non-investment to catch up on to make non-motor-vehicular transport attractive for short (say less than 5 miles say) journeys, then when those more appropriate and better (life expectancy, reduction of type 2 diabetes etc) forms of transport are more convenient they will be used.
That needs adjustments to our transport environment, including discouragement of private motor vehicles where not apprropriate. We are seeing the differences in some places already (notably some parts of London and a few other places), but it is a long-term project for a generation, and needs a culture change as part of it.
Sorry, you had me until your final paragraph. Yes, removing roadblocks to cycling so that those who can cycle are able to do so if they want to is an entirely reasonable objective. Similarly for walking too, too many routes lack safe footpaths and if a journey is sub-2 miles then that is within walking distance for those who are fit and healthy.
However the use of private motor vehicles is never "not appropriate". Indeed for those with mobility or balance issues it can be their only safe means of transportation.
Discouraging the use of private motor vehicles is no better than discouraging the use of cycling. Far better is to ensure the two can safely coexist side by side and let people choose freely and without pressure which suits them.
Cheers for the response.
The issue is about allocation of scarce resources - eg road space - so there are decisions that have to be made.
The challenge is sharpest in cities. And the factors include efficiency (private vehicles being the most inefficient in terms of moving people), equality (many people *cannot* get a driving license for eg medical reasons), safety, perceived safety, emissions, and others I can't think of for now.
Discouraging / reducing use of private motor vehicles in cities helps efficiency and congestion for two desirable outcomes.
Do we give this 3.5m of road width to a second general lane, or to an extra 1.0m of pavement, a 2m protected mobility lane for cycles, mobility scooters, wheelers, and e-scooters, and a 0.5m protective buffer to stop the motor vehicles injuring people?
Or the recent case of Kensington High Street, where the Borough Council removed a protected mobility lane, and that space is now taken up mainly by a very small number of parked cars? Desirable?
We need to make decisions so that they different modes *can* exist safely side by side. Cycles, pedestrians, wheelers etc do not mix safely with general traffic unless the general traffic is a very small minority, and the speed limit is under 20mph.
Equally, there is an argument for separated road / mobility / pedestrian networks everywhere to encourage cycles and mobility scooters to stay off roads.
I'd say that decisions are somewhat different in rural areas.
The political issues are two fold here though
a) People like the convenience of cars where as public transport is inconvenient b) The only real way to get less cars because of a) is to make them evermore expensive to run and then that will be perceived as pricing the poor of the road.
*Note I don't own a car or motorcycle and haven't driven in 15 years or so and therefore really have no skin in the game
There is a c), if you make public transport as convenient as possible, and tax car externalities appropriately (not excessively), then people will choose public transport, at least some of the time.
c) Is not achievable, I mostly use the bus when I absolutely have to go out but its never going to be convenient and there is no way it can be made as convenient as a car. The inconvenience of the bus actually means there are many times I think oh I could go do this then think shit no that means a bus and we have a pretty good bus service here compared to most places outside central london.
However, if the journey by bus (or bike) took 2/3 of the time of the journey by car, and cost half as much?
(Agree - that would be dependent on area.)
I've noticed people change their habits whilst we have the current £2 bus fare cap. Has that affected your habits?
No I don't go out much because almost everywhere I want to get to means take a bus to the town centre then wait for another bus that goes to where I actually want to go. Each bus is only likely to actually turn up and because bus routes tend to be circuitous they take an age so a journey I can do in a car in 10minutes usually takes an hour or more. Hence why I am often put off when I think about going out.
You couldn't pay me to ride a bike even if you turned all the roads to cycle lanes and removed all the cars
Why? I'm genuinely intrigued. Because you're worried about falling off? Because you feel you'd look silly? Don't want to get sweaty?
Weather for starters, most of the year it is either too hot or too cold or too wet to want to use a bike. Secondly nowhere to keep a bike, thirdly I have back issues and the risk of them kicking in when about and not being able to cycle back, fourthly when I go out I want to dress the way I want to and not how I have to in order to ride a bike.
Stats on cycling show that isn't much variance by weather or month.
There are currently plans to roll out cycle storage (cyclehoop) across most cities and towns
Sorry about the back issue. Not much you can do about that, though cycling tends to be a pretty low impact activity (unless you get hit by a driver)
You don't have to wear lycra. I cycle in my work stuff
Stats on cycling show that there isn't much variance for people who already like to cycle for those that don't I am betting its a major factor
I meant to store at my home so cyclehoop is totally irrelevant
I didn't imagine I had to wear lycra, however all my coats are too long to be safe wearing while cycling and I have no intention of changing that to get on something I don't want to get on in the first place. The whole idea of even getting on a cycle is anathema for large numbers of the population.
You seem to be of the opinion that everyone secretly wants to cycle and its just a matter of assuaging external reasons. Frankly I would rather go out wearing a lime green mankini than get on a bike. I have zero interest in cycling and didn't before my back issues.
In about ten years there will be thousands of tiny electric self driving cabs which will be perfect for people like you. Summon them with your phone, they turn up at your door, chauffeur you to yout desrination (cheaply) then they tootle off to the next job
No there really won't, you are living in your fantasy world again.
There really will. It's obvious. Indeed, it is already happening in China
"Driverless vehicles may sound like something from science fiction, but they are racing into daily life sooner than many people expected, experts said.
These vehicles have immense potential to be a revolutionary technology to transform lives and open a new chapter in intelligent transportation, they added.
In some Chinese cities, robotaxis can now be hailed through ride-hailing apps for travel to destinations such as subway stations, commercial areas and residential communities. Users only need to input the pickup and drop-off points and the number of passengers. A few minutes later, a self-driving taxi approaches."
Also, why be so miserably pessimistic about it! This technology will be perfect and transformative for people who are in exactly your position, with limited public transport, who can't afford to get wildly expensive normal cabs everywhere, and who don't want to cycle.
The taxis will be small little things, podules almost. Cheap and cheerful
A decade ago you were fapping yourself off over the *fact* there would be no lorry drivers in a decade...
A decade ago you were adamant that machine translation would always be rubbish
Quote, please. IIRC, I believe you were going on about how you would advise your daughters never to become translators, as the machines would win. I was (and still am) far more bearish than that.
That's not quite what you said above.
It still doesn't change the fact you were, and are, hilariously wrong.
Only a world class idiot would be advising his kids to "think about translation as a career" in the light of ChatGPT (and everythig that will come after, as it just gets better and better). Machine translation, in many cases, is now near flawless. And virtually free
I was right. Which makes you are a world class idiot. This is not a revelation for the ages
However I will accept that self driving has taken longer than expected to arrive; it is, nonetheless, on the way
I disagree with almost everything you wrote there. As for "think about translation as a career" : why not? Even if the bottom falls out of the market, there are still transferable skills. And if someone wants to do it, and has a passion for it, why not?
My granddaughter is about to join a Milan Law firm for one year from Leeds University as a translator before returning to complete her degree
But I am right. It is happening, here and now. As we sit here and check the rain at Lords
"Who killed the EU’s translators?
Automation is creeping into European Union institutions — and translators are among its first victims.
Artificial intelligence has taken its first bite out of the Brussels bubble.
High-tech machines that can run through Eurocratic jargon at record speed have replaced hundreds of translators working for the EU, downsizing one of the largest and oldest departments among the multilingual Brussels institutions.
And this might be just the start, as new AI tools have the potential to further replace humans."
My granddaughter was offered a place at Kyoto University as well but chose Milan as she wanted the practical experience of translating in a working environment
She is fluent in Welsh, French, Italian and Japanese and frankly I have no worries about her future, as languages open a whole world of opportunity
I think she will do very well. That many languages she is clearly very bright. Besides, I wouldn't worry too much about @Leon's pessimism (I expect you know that). I was told in about 2000 that the internet would kill my business by one kind soul. It didn't and did quite the reverse. I haven't seen the plonker since because I'd love to remind him lol.
You should give the sacked EU translators or redundant Bild Subeditors a pep talk - "don't worry, it will all be fine, I'm doing great". It will be a massive solace to them, and remind them that AI is no threat at all
I was more referring to @Big_G_NorthWales's granddaughter. Those that have been made redundant I feel great sympathy for. Many companies I have worked with over the years will continue to value language skills. Maybe one day someone will discover an AI driven electronic implant version of the Babel Fish where no-one needs to know any languages to converse in real time with cultural subtleties but that is quite sometime off
Amazingly, the Babelfish is, aleady, nearly here
"In-Ear Device Delivers Clear Multilingual Communication with Close to Zero Latency"
They sound quite good, with obvious flaws. But that is remarkable in itself. A sci fi dream - the Babelfish - is close to reality.
In three years? Five? Ten?
I imagine it will be very hard to get "Babelfish" that capture every subtle nuance and idiom of language, but for everyday wandering around as a tourist, or for basic business chats and the like, they will be absolutely fine
Another nail in the coffin of the translator's job
It is interesting to speculate how it will impact the hegemony of English? Will so many people feel a need to learn it? Probably not. But English is the absolute language of technology, and as technology expands so does English, so there will be opposing forces
I reckon we will end up in a world where there is one dominant language, English, and a load of others that slowly die out, until the aliens zap us with weird lasers shaped like bassoons
I wonder how many Douglas Adams words and phrases have entered the English language. A lot less than Shakespeare, but then he wrote a lot more, clearly not having Douglas Adams word blockage and sadly slightly less longevity.
A friend of mine lives with the woman who inherited virtually the entire Adams estate
It generates enormous sums of money
He is one of the finest surreal comedy writers of all time. Rivals the Pythons, possibly better.
I never found his humour particularly funny. It was often clever but it had a sixth form quality. Intelligent but somehow adolescent?
However he was fantastically imaginative and fiercely bright, which goes a long way
So many of his concepts and memes have entered global discourse. From Babelfish to "42" to the Probability Drive, and many more
So long, and thanks for all the fish.
"Fish" is one of those words that is just surreally funny. Python also had the knack for use of amusing but mundane words. Halibut always makes me smile. Maybe I have a sea creature thing.
I can visually picture Mr Bean mouthing the word “Halibut”, in his exaggerated style, while holding a fish in his hands.
Rowan Atkinson is one of those rare comedians who can make you laugh: virtually as soon as you look at him
Eric Morecambe had the same gift
Exceptionally unusual
99% of comics - even really good comics - have to do or say SOMETHING to get you amused, but the real unique comic geniuses can just stand there and they are funny. No idea how that works
It’s the funny bones.
Apropos the earlier discussion, Mr Bean is known in pretty much every country in the world, because there was almost no translation necessary. Very few spoken words, in the whole series.
Weirdly, never liked it.
But it's the same principal as the biggest movie hits often being simplistic in theme and explosion heavy, since enjoying people running through exciting action translates well.
I would be happy if I was on a train to Darsham as well! My mother was born in Middleton.
My wife has just found Seinfeld on Netflix, and admits to never having seen it before! Now watching Season 1 Episode 1
At that point it was "The Seinfeld Chronicles", greenlit for only four episodes, the money scrounged from various slush funds by a network executive after the company as a whole refused to fund it.
No Elaine to begin with, and Jerry really can't act in the first few. Jason Alexander carries it.
Very hard to induce real scares with mere words...
Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper" is psychological horror, presumably not scary enough for 2023, but interesting nonetheless. The text is here.
Neal Shusterman's "Unwind" is a YA novel (I haven't read it, just the online excerpt) which isn't scary but does have an unsettling passage when a character is unwound, and the table keeps getting smaller... Here is the text.
Nicholas DiChario’s “The Winterberry”. It helps if you don't know who the person is, although it is obvious. Here is the text..
Patricia Highsmith's “The Quest for ‘Blank Claveringi’” is a horror story about giant snails, that got to me as a child. The snails are slow, but the island is small and you have to sleep sometime... I don't know what I'd think of it now and I don't have the text.
Internet Archive (as so often) is your friend - in this case one of the 'borrowable' works rather than the ones permanently available/downloadable to keep.
Comments
The other day I noticed there's a plaque to W W Jacobs around the corner from my flat. A local lad
OTOH, I had some drinks with some old friends working in retail (outdoor stuff) and apparently customers are even bigger arseholes than usual, leaving people in tears. The "I'll get my manager" button gets pressed much more more often, and managers are taking no prisoners in the defence as it's so hard to retain staff as it is.
But it's the same principal as the biggest movie hits often being simplistic in theme and explosion heavy, since enjoying people running through exciting action translates well.
Online comedy kept me sane during the pandemic, but nothing beats being in the room - whether it’s at a 50-seat local room, or a 5,000 seat arena.
And I remember the description of the boyfriend of the girl he was secretly dating -'...Not exactly a thug, but unlikely ever to be mistaken for The Bishop of Bath & Wells.'
I love that sort of writing.
Humour writing I tend to have genteel appreciation for rather than laughing out loud. The few authors who have raised genuine lulz from me are:
Bill Bryson (especially A Walk In The Woods)
David Sedaris
‘Alan Partridge’ (I.E. the Gibbons brothers who wrote his autobiography)
Jonathan Meades
Terry Pratchett
I have to break with consensus on Hitchhikers - I found it dull and self-satisfied.
TC replied 'If only you knew what it took for me to even walk out on stage.'
Seems anger at Macron who was at Elton John's concert the day after the police shooting
https://news.sky.com/video/france-emmanuel-macron-seen-at-elton-john-concert-as-violent-riots-rage-across-the-country-12912256
The UK case: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-59882444
A very entertaining chat! And now I must hie me to the shops, therewith to buy tucker
My Mam used to drink in his local when she was a Student.
She endorses your message.
She also says he was unbelievably hilarious.
He spent the first 20 minutes pretending he couldn't find a way through the backstage curtain. And
guffawing.
By which stage the audience was in pieces.
He was a great comedian - RIP
Ely. The first tiny inkling that something somewhere has gone terribly wrong.
Contrast with, say, Robin Williams
For me it's Dura Ace. Nobody else comes out with such condensed poison, and to do it while avoiding cliches is breathtaking. Nobody else on here has that talent.
TC: Doctor, every time I do this it hurts (TC places finger on eye).
Doctor: Then stop doing it.
Sorry.
Neal Shusterman's "Unwind" is a YA novel (I haven't read it, just the online excerpt) which isn't scary but does have an unsettling passage when a character is unwound, and the table keeps getting smaller... Here is the text.
Nicholas DiChario’s “The Winterberry”. It helps if you don't know who the person is, although it is obvious. Here is the text..
Patricia Highsmith's “The Quest for ‘Blank Claveringi’” is a horror story about giant snails, that got to me as a child. The snails are slow, but the island is small and you have to sleep sometime... I don't know what I'd think of it now and I don't have the text.
Yet get him alone, and he was a totally different character. Morose, thoughtful, and incredibly quiet. He had a totally different - and somewhat nicer - personae.
I don't think he ever made it into the big time, sadly.
Much missed
But that earlier stuff wasn't particularly good, either ...
I can't think of anything worse than being famous. Luckily, I have no discernible talent so it'll never happen to me.
(This is good btw)
What happened?!
I think the only novel that's ever made me gasp out loud in suspense/terror is "Watcher in the Shadows" by Geoffrey Household of Rogue Male fame.
BTW, writing to make you laugh out loud: Three Men in a Boat. (The medical dictionary, Uncle Podger's picture, the tin of pineapple and lots more). Jerome;s Diary of a Pilgrimage is also worth reading. (But not his awful novels).
"Shadow Over Innsmouth" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIn0XPZl_d0
"Watcher in the Shadows https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/242760
I still quote your comments on khat - “ like chewing a privet hedge for the high of a double espresso “
Genius
I am experimenting with some possibly amusing long form stuff. Can’t say more than that
Wodehouse's 'Uncle Fred Flits By' runs a close second.
I think the only novel that's ever made me gasp out loud in suspense/terror is "Watcher in the Shadows" by Geoffrey Household of Rogue Male fame.
Household is bit dated now but his plots have a great sense of pace. Along with "Watcher "and Rouge Male, I would recommend " A Rough Shoot"
Tim could be superbly biting. I think there was a genuine streak of sadism in him, which helped
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08ywxy7?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
Tell, don’t show. Hint, don’t tell. Imply, don’t hint… less is more with horror.
‘I suppose it is Worby, and not a substitute,’ thought Lake to himself
He said only doing mid-life dating after he got divored did he meet more.
ColinW's Mum.
Didn't we have a controversial commenter called ColinW?
This is Ur-PB, the absolutely early days, the first minutes after the Big Bang, the PB book of Genesis
Remind me why it was funny and what was said? I have forgotten this bit of PB folklore
Another busy day - I see my observations on the first hour of the cricket turned out to be valid.
I'd also make the same point about tomorrow - we had a torrid first hour today, I suspect it'll be the Australian's turn tomorrow. Two or three quick wickets and especially if we can keep the target below 300 and we'll have a sniff but we'll need to go back to batting the Boycott way and not the Bazball way.
Looking at the usual rush of mid to end of week polls. Savanta will no doubt have encouraged some Conservatives - it looks on its own but I've not yet seen the tables so I'll take more of a view after that.
Techne has the Conservatives down a couple of points but it's all MoE - among the 65+ age group, the Conservative lead is seven (41-34) down from 47 at the 2019 election so that's a 20% swing. The 2016 LEAVE voters still have the Conservatives ahead 48-27 so that's an 18.5% swing among LEAVE voters from 2016.
Omnisis have MoE moves as well - the supplementaries aren't too bad for Sunak - again we wait the detailed tabs.
I suspect we'll see a slight but gradual improvement in Conservative VI through the summer - people generally are more mellow before and after their holidays but we are now 42 months into the Parliament so notions of mid term are moving behind us. Time is running out in every sense - the next challenge will be July 20th (not trying to be Valkyrist here). MY assumption is holding any of the three seats will be seen by the Conservatives as a success - IF all three are lost and are lost badly, the question is whether that will produce a response in the Conservative Parliamentary Party.
That in turn pre-supposes if there is any fight left in Tory MPs or whether they are in effect resigned to defeat at the next election. I'm sure there will be plenty of defiance in forums like this and on Twitter and elsewhere but there comes a point when "sauve qui peut" takes over.
"It's not as though we're brothers or anything"
https://archive.org/details/snailwatcherothe0000high
“Who has?”
“So which one are you?”
No Elaine to begin with, and Jerry really can't act in the first few. Jason Alexander carries it.