The Guardian review of Chinese reactions to "Three Body Problem" quotes a viewer as saying it is "flat and shallow". Which, for all those of you who have read the books, is actually a spoiler...
Why on Earth does somebody earning nearly £100K need childcare support? Is the UK really that broken that childcare is now that expensive that people in the top 10% of earners can't afford it?
Pretty much. I remember when I had two kids under three: on any given day they went to nursery - and it wasn't a particularly fancy nursery - it cost me more than I earned in that day. I was basically working so I was still employable when they went to school.
The cost of nursery seems to be that of moderate private school. In London, well over £1k per month, per child, full time.
Yes. And you know, the nursery was fine. But it was a long way from private school quality.
I can't understand why people still bring up children in London. It doesn't make any sense anymore. A house costs £800,000. Nursery costs at least £1000 a month. The shops seem to be money laundering enterprises and not real businesses. If you are starting from nothing you would need to both earn £100k. From what I can see people are increasingly not doing it anymore and dropping out.
Most people don’t. Hence commuter belt, where you have the privilege of 90 minutes travel each way, each day…
I love visiting London. But I’m so happy living in the Scottish countryside with fresh air and a short commute to work (same building). When I need to go to London it’s a cheap flight south.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
2016 is not a reasonable baseline as Brexit considerably affected the data already in 2016.
If you want a long term comparison it needs to be from before Brexit affected the data, which is why 2010 is a reasonable starting point.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Point of order: EU GDP in 2016 included the UK, so I very much doubt that is true.
Furthermore, I think it's more useful to discuss GDP per capital.
25% UK 35% EU per capita increase PPP since 2016 World Bank figures, which I have to admit surprise me.
It is laughable that you are comparing to 2016. At the time you lot said that the reason we didn't have the mass unemployment and interest spike predicted because we were doing great because we were still in the EU. Now you are trying to claim a period of EU membership shackles as part of the post-Brexit age.
No, the right time period to compare to is after we left the EU, de jure and de facto. We fully left on 31 December 2020. That is the measurement date.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
Yet the fact we still outgrew the EU since we left in 2020, despite the clearly terrible effect of the Truss premiership, shows how bad the EU is doing.
Bet Kate was tempted to end her video with "So, fuck you social media twats!"
Though to be fair to said twats this video directly contradicts last week’s farm shop video…
She can still go out and about in private, surely?
Which one? The “Kate” at the farm shop looks nothing like the Kate in today’s video.
Give it a rest!
The lesson today should be to stop with the conspiracy theories, not to continue with them.
The reason for the conspiracy theories was that they were hiding something. Now she is within her rights to do so, health is a very personal thing. But the information vacuum got filled. The farm shop thing seems to have been an unrelated stunt. I have no belief that the Mother’s Day photo was real.
I have huge sympathy for her. It won’t be an easy time. But saying that the lesson should be to stop with the conspiracy theories when there really was something ‘up’ is wide of the mark.
There was nothing stopping people going, “This seems odd, but let’s respect Kate’s privacy at this time.” No, people had to come up with wild explanations that turned out to be nonsense. Maybe your desire to fill the “information vacuum” is less important than respecting someone’s right to have medical treatment without being bothered?
There was no farm shop stunt. William and Kate went to a farm shop and someone took a video of them. This point blank refusal to countenance that the truth is that boring is basically the same as some Americans believing Trump isn’t a fraudster who lost the 2020 election.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
I’ve just discovered that Claude - the best A.I. chatbot in the world as of today - is not available in the EU due to the EU’s ridiculous new laws and general wankiness
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
I haven't been following this story but, if true, what on earth were they thinking?
You don't touch the national flag. Ever.
It almost killed British Airways when they did all the wacky tailfins 20 years ago. And Woke wasn't even a thing then.
20? That was in Mrs T's time, surely.
It was.
BA found some idiots who told them to ditch the whole “British thing”
So they came up with a bunch of designs which were mind blowingly average. Sort of middle class white 12 year old does Tribal Art for the end of year completion.
Mrs Thatcher was shown this at a trade fair and reacted by wrapping a handkerchief around the tail of the model
Within days, Richard Branson announced that if BA didn’t want to be the national flag carrier, Virgin would.
And rightly so.
This smacks of a lot of Boardroom Liberals who all think everyone thinks the same as them, or should do so.
It's very difficult to get them to see another point of view, when they're like that, or even take such a thing seriously, so I bet either (a) no-one spoke up against it sensing this or, (b) if they did, were either laughed at or summarily dismissed, possibly both.
And they probably droned on about the importance of psychological safety so people felt free to air views at the same time.
No, it wasn’t about liberals and politics. This was the time of aviation deregulation and freedom of the skies. They wanted to become a global carrier and worried their obvious Britishness made them look too much like an airline you’d only take to and from the UK. BA also had a stuffy identity to foreign travellers. The new livery was about globalising the brand and attempting to compete with the more informal style of Virgin Atlantic. Looking back now it was a pretty good rebrand.
Might have been naive of them not to expect a contrived tabloid backlash, but people trying to give it a retrospective woke badge are getting the wrong end of the stick.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
2016 is not a reasonable baseline as Brexit considerably affected the data already in 2016.
If you want a long term comparison it needs to be from before Brexit affected the data, which is why 2010 is a reasonable starting point.
Why 2010, when Brexiting seemed unlikely? 2015 when a government was elected with a pledge to hold a referendum might make sense.
Perhaps this is a window on the difference between fascism and conservatism.
Meanwhile the strapline in the Times is hilarious:
"The prime minster joined Sir Keir Starmer, as well as Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson, in speaking out against the change to the flag on the England kit collar".
Ed Davey was slow off the mark, or nobody cares what he says?
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
I’ve just discovered that Claude - the best A.I. chatbot in the world as of today - is not available in the EU due to the EU’s ridiculous new laws and general wankiness
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
And after April this year, we will be phasing out virtually all low skill immigration. A combination of Brexit and income thresholds on visas. The only way in for a low income Asian or African peasant will be signing up for the NHS for years. Something conservative Muslims that don't want to touch the opposite sex won't do.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
I’ve just discovered that Claude - the best A.I. chatbot in the world as of today - is not available in the EU due to the EU’s ridiculous new laws and general wankiness
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
Surely that means our EU brethren have a few more years before they need to BRACE?
The POTS switch off and forcing everyone onto digital voice is going to be an absolute disaster, a scandal waiting to unfold.
Ofcom have manifestly failed in their duty to protect the public. Before Openreach were allowed to do it, they should have mandated bolstering the mobile networks and requiring backup power in the case of a power cut. On the current trajectory people are going to be left cut off.
Having a copper line won’t do much good, when the power goes out. How many yards of copper to the cabinet? And what happens when the cabinet goes out? They don’t run off wind up rubber bands…
The POTS system works through most power cuts and storms, assuming your phone can get its power from the line which some still can. For example my elderly parents rely on it.
Most of it will go out, even with quite localised power cuts.
If you want resiliency, buy an Iridium phone. Or, not long from now, your cellphone will get reception from low earth orbit. Literally.
Not in the recent power cuts they've had, the phone continued to work.
I am supportive of the switch, I just think Ofcom should have strengthened the mobile networks first as this is what people will rely on in the event the broadband goes down - and these are not good enough as acknowledged by the need of the SRN.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
Agreed on bold.
A government can only do so many things at once. The next government could either waste its time obsessing about the UK's relationship with the EU, or it could do something effective about improving skills training, business investment, finance availability, etc, that would help improve Britain's economic performance.
It's possible a new government will do neither, but it should at least try to do the right thing.
Britain has already wasted a decade because of Brexit. Another wasted decade isn't going to help.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
2016 is not a reasonable baseline as Brexit considerably affected the data already in 2016.
If you want a long term comparison it needs to be from before Brexit affected the data, which is why 2010 is a reasonable starting point.
Why 2010, when Brexiting seemed unlikely? 2015 when a government was elected with a pledge to hold a referendum might make sense.
The obvious comparison without cherry picking years or countries is to compare since we actually left and with the whole EU. Something Europhiles are trying to desparately not mention.
Perhaps this is a window on the difference between fascism and conservatism.
Meanwhile the strapline in the Times is hilarious:
"The prime minster joined Sir Keir Starmer, as well as Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson, in speaking out against the change to the flag on the England kit collar".
Ed Davey was slow off the mark, or nobody cares what he says?
Who?
Oh yeah, you kinda forget.
Silly Ed Davey, not engaging with the most vitally important political issue of the day.
What’s more, the EU’s innate AI handicap is going to get worse not better. This is by far the most important technology in the world, this is the future for us all (like it or not). This will change how economies function and those that seize the moment will prosper
The leading A.I. countries are the USA then China. Then probably the UK, France and Canada
Only France figures from the EU. So the EU is already struggling with its A.I. future. And what is their reaction? To introduce the tightest international AI regulation anywhere, making sure they really crush any A.I. start ups and scaring off the overseas companies
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
I’ve just discovered that Claude - the best A.I. chatbot in the world as of today - is not available in the EU due to the EU’s ridiculous new laws and general wankiness
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
Claude is nowhere near as good as the Pro version of Gemini.
The POTS switch off and forcing everyone onto digital voice is going to be an absolute disaster, a scandal waiting to unfold.
Ofcom have manifestly failed in their duty to protect the public. Before Openreach were allowed to do it, they should have mandated bolstering the mobile networks and requiring backup power in the case of a power cut. On the current trajectory people are going to be left cut off.
Having a copper line won’t do much good, when the power goes out. How many yards of copper to the cabinet? And what happens when the cabinet goes out? They don’t run off wind up rubber bands…
The POTS system works through most power cuts and storms, assuming your phone can get its power from the line which some still can. For example my elderly parents rely on it.
Most of it will go out, even with quite localised power cuts.
If you want resiliency, buy an Iridium phone. Or, not long from now, your cellphone will get reception from low earth orbit. Literally.
Not in the recent power cuts they've had, the phone continued to work.
I am supportive of the switch, I just think Ofcom should have strengthened the mobile networks first as this is what people will rely on in the event the broadband goes down - and these are not good enough as acknowledged by the need of the SRN.
The mobile network would require major rebuilding to be be power cut resilient. Batteries and solar panels all over the place, not mention satellite back haul.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
Yet the fact we still outgrew the EU since we left in 2020, despite the clearly terrible effect of the Truss premiership, shows how bad the EU is doing.
It also shows that the UK had a worse 2020 thanks to covid and then a sharper bounce back.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
I’ve just discovered that Claude - the best A.I. chatbot in the world as of today - is not available in the EU due to the EU’s ridiculous new laws and general wankiness
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
Yes. I heard about that. Luckily, Claude isn't too fussed by VPNs.
@Leon on flowering trees. One of the best things about Australia is watching 30,000 flying foxes (gigantic bats) gorging on eucalyptus nectar. We have a group that visit the tree outside the window like clockwork.
Perhaps this is a window on the difference between fascism and conservatism.
Meanwhile the strapline in the Times is hilarious:
"The prime minster joined Sir Keir Starmer, as well as Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson, in speaking out against the change to the flag on the England kit collar".
Ed Davey was slow off the mark, or nobody cares what he says?
Who?
Oh yeah, you kinda forget.
He needs better branding. He’s already a “Sir” but it doesn’t work
He should be a duke. Duke Ed Davey. And wear suits made out of shimmering scarlet metallic foil and a pink wizard’s hat all the time. And he could levitate
Imagine Duke Davey literally FLOATING into the Lib Dem conference through an upstairs window in his vermillion metal suit and pink wizards hat
There’s no way the media would ignore that. No more “forgetting about the Lib Dems”
I haven't been following this story but, if true, what on earth were they thinking?
You don't touch the national flag. Ever.
It almost killed British Airways when they did all the wacky tailfins 20 years ago. And Woke wasn't even a thing then.
20? That was in Mrs T's time, surely.
It was.
BA found some idiots who told them to ditch the whole “British thing”
So they came up with a bunch of designs which were mind blowingly average. Sort of middle class white 12 year old does Tribal Art for the end of year completion.
Mrs Thatcher was shown this at a trade fair and reacted by wrapping a handkerchief around the tail of the model
Within days, Richard Branson announced that if BA didn’t want to be the national flag carrier, Virgin would.
And rightly so.
This smacks of a lot of Boardroom Liberals who all think everyone thinks the same as them, or should do so.
It's very difficult to get them to see another point of view, when they're like that, or even take such a thing seriously, so I bet either (a) no-one spoke up against it sensing this or, (b) if they did, were either laughed at or summarily dismissed, possibly both.
And they probably droned on about the importance of psychological safety so people felt free to air views at the same time.
No, it wasn’t about liberals and politics. This was the time of aviation deregulation and freedom of the skies. They wanted to become a global carrier and worried their obvious Britishness made them look too much like an airline you’d only take to and from the UK. BA also had a stuffy identity to foreign travellers. The new livery was about globalising the brand and attempting to compete with the more informal style of Virgin Atlantic. Looking back now it was a pretty good rebrand.
Might have been naive of them not to expect a contrived tabloid backlash, but people trying to give it a retrospective woke badge are getting the wrong end of the stick.
A pretty good rebrand - apart from being hated by the customers and staff, it had to be ditched in a hurry, otherwise Virgin would have staked a claim to being the literal flag carrier.
So apart from the customers, the staff and getting binned by management….
That’s the kind of success that only NU10K celebrates.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
I’ve just discovered that Claude - the best A.I. chatbot in the world as of today - is not available in the EU due to the EU’s ridiculous new laws and general wankiness
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
Claude is nowhere near as good as the Pro version of Gemini.
Pro 1.5. Pro 1.0 is very much not as good.
Also, I'd still say claude 3 'opus' is better then Gemini 1.5 for a lot of use-cases.
At least based on my experiments so far with the API.
The POTS switch off and forcing everyone onto digital voice is going to be an absolute disaster, a scandal waiting to unfold.
Ofcom have manifestly failed in their duty to protect the public. Before Openreach were allowed to do it, they should have mandated bolstering the mobile networks and requiring backup power in the case of a power cut. On the current trajectory people are going to be left cut off.
Having a copper line won’t do much good, when the power goes out. How many yards of copper to the cabinet? And what happens when the cabinet goes out? They don’t run off wind up rubber bands…
The POTS system works through most power cuts and storms, assuming your phone can get its power from the line which some still can. For example my elderly parents rely on it.
Most of it will go out, even with quite localised power cuts.
If you want resiliency, buy an Iridium phone. Or, not long from now, your cellphone will get reception from low earth orbit. Literally.
Not in the recent power cuts they've had, the phone continued to work.
I am supportive of the switch, I just think Ofcom should have strengthened the mobile networks first as this is what people will rely on in the event the broadband goes down - and these are not good enough as acknowledged by the need of the SRN.
The mobile network would require major rebuilding to be be power cut resilient. Batteries and solar panels all over the place, not mention satellite back haul.
They could mandate longer generator periods, at the moment it's half an hour to an hour. They should mandate longer, hours at least.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
Agreed on bold.
A government can only do so many things at once. The next government could either waste its time obsessing about the UK's relationship with the EU, or it could do something effective about improving skills training, business investment, finance availability, etc, that would help improve Britain's economic performance.
It's possible a new government will do neither, but it should at least try to do the right thing.
Britain has already wasted a decade because of Brexit. Another wasted decade isn't going to help.
Just as the EU was blamed for all our economic travails before 2016, Brexit is blamed for everything since.
And in truth, it almost certainly had no more than a negligible effect either way.
Most economic policies are domestic. You can be a successful exporter and an EU member. And you can be a complete fuck up too.
Blaming other entities for your problems just means you aren't doing the hard work to fix them yourself.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
I’ve just discovered that Claude - the best A.I. chatbot in the world as of today - is not available in the EU due to the EU’s ridiculous new laws and general wankiness
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
Claude is nowhere near as good as the Pro version of Gemini.
I’ve used both and find Claude better. But of course it depends what you want to do
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
I’ve just discovered that Claude - the best A.I. chatbot in the world as of today - is not available in the EU due to the EU’s ridiculous new laws and general wankiness
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
Claude is nowhere near as good as the Pro version of Gemini.
I’ve used both and find Claude better. But of course it depends what you want to do
You don't have access to the Pro version of Gemini unless you are a Google technology partner. You may have access to the paid version, but that is not the same.
Fair enough. I’m talking about the paid version of Gemini. I didn’t realise there was a VIP version
Now I’m intrigued! In what ways is it better? Any examples you can show?
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Point of order: EU GDP in 2016 included the UK, so I very much doubt that is true.
Furthermore, I think it's more useful to discuss GDP per capital.
25% UK 35% EU per capita increase PPP since 2016 World Bank figures, which I have to admit surprise me.
It is laughable that you are comparing to 2016. At the time you lot said that the reason we didn't have the mass unemployment and interest spike predicted because we were doing great because we were still in the EU. Now you are trying to claim a period of EU membership shackles as part of the post-Brexit age.
No, the right time period to compare to is after we left the EU, de jure and de facto. We fully left on 31 December 2020. That is the measurement date.
OK. Let me adjust.
We're held back by the EU. Between 2019 the last year before Brexit on 31 January 2020 and 2022 the last year for which the World Bank has data the EU only managed a miserable 9% GDP growth. The UK on the other hand grew an amazing ... Sorry it fell by an amazing 6%>
What’s more, the EU’s innate AI handicap is going to get worse not better. This is by far the most important technology in the world, this is the future for us all (like it or not). This will change how economies function and those that seize the moment will prosper
The leading A.I. countries are the USA then China. Then probably the UK, France and Canada
Only France figures from the EU. So the EU is already struggling with its A.I. future. And what is their reaction? To introduce the tightest international AI regulation anywhere, making sure they really crush any A.I. start ups and scaring off the overseas companies
The main UK lead in AI was gutted a few days ago. The EU is left with it's "world beating" regulation, and the UK is left with it's "world beating" `curl -X POST` experts. Maybe Rishi should arrange another meeting... or something.
What’s more, the EU’s innate AI handicap is going to get worse not better. This is by far the most important technology in the world, this is the future for us all (like it or not). This will change how economies function and those that seize the moment will prosper
The leading A.I. countries are the USA then China. Then probably the UK, France and Canada
Only France figures from the EU. So the EU is already struggling with its A.I. future. And what is their reaction? To introduce the tightest international AI regulation anywhere, making sure they really crush any A.I. start ups and scaring off the overseas companies
The main UK lead in AI was gutted a few days ago. The EU is left with it's "world beating" regulation, and the UK is left with it's "world beating" `curl -X POST` experts. Maybe Rishi should arrange another meeting... or something.
France has Mistral. Hopefully Mistral will flee Paris for london (they lobbied strongly against this new EU law)
I haven't been following this story but, if true, what on earth were they thinking?
You don't touch the national flag. Ever.
It almost killed British Airways when they did all the wacky tailfins 20 years ago. And Woke wasn't even a thing then.
20? That was in Mrs T's time, surely.
It was.
BA found some idiots who told them to ditch the whole “British thing”
So they came up with a bunch of designs which were mind blowingly average. Sort of middle class white 12 year old does Tribal Art for the end of year completion.
Mrs Thatcher was shown this at a trade fair and reacted by wrapping a handkerchief around the tail of the model
Within days, Richard Branson announced that if BA didn’t want to be the national flag carrier, Virgin would.
And rightly so.
This smacks of a lot of Boardroom Liberals who all think everyone thinks the same as them, or should do so.
It's very difficult to get them to see another point of view, when they're like that, or even take such a thing seriously, so I bet either (a) no-one spoke up against it sensing this or, (b) if they did, were either laughed at or summarily dismissed, possibly both.
And they probably droned on about the importance of psychological safety so people felt free to air views at the same time.
No, it wasn’t about liberals and politics. This was the time of aviation deregulation and freedom of the skies. They wanted to become a global carrier and worried their obvious Britishness made them look too much like an airline you’d only take to and from the UK. BA also had a stuffy identity to foreign travellers. The new livery was about globalising the brand and attempting to compete with the more informal style of Virgin Atlantic. Looking back now it was a pretty good rebrand.
Might have been naive of them not to expect a contrived tabloid backlash, but people trying to give it a retrospective woke badge are getting the wrong end of the stick.
A pretty good rebrand - apart from being hated by the customers and staff, it had to be ditched in a hurry, otherwise Virgin would have staked a claim to being the literal flag carrier.
So apart from the customers, the staff and getting binned by management….
That’s the kind of success that only NU10K celebrates.
Tailfins aside 90% of the rebrand is still with us now. It has stood the test of time. Out went the awkward stuffy triangles, in came the new font (still in use) and the flowing ribbon logo (still in use).
The tailfins divided opinion (well few people really cared but the tabloids claimed to) but look at them now and they are entirely uncontroversial. They were a little ahead of their time - more noughties than 90s.
The fawning over the Royal Family really is utterly pathetic.
It's very sad somebody has cancer. Lots of people have cancer.
Yes but even republicans must recognise it is very difficult for any family to have both the grandfather and daughter in law with cancer at the same time
The fawning over the Royal Family really is utterly pathetic.
It's very sad somebody has cancer. Lots of people have cancer.
Yes but even republicans must recognise it is very difficult for any family to have both the grandfather and daughter in law with cancer at the same time
I am not a republican.
Lots of families have people with more than one person having cancer. I am afraid the Royal Family are in no way unique in that respect and undoubtedly get better treatment and outcomes than most people. That's not to say it isn't sad - it just is pathetic the attention it all gets.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
I’ve just discovered that Claude - the best A.I. chatbot in the world as of today - is not available in the EU due to the EU’s ridiculous new laws and general wankiness
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
Claude is nowhere near as good as the Pro version of Gemini.
I’ve used both and find Claude better. But of course it depends what you want to do
You don't have access to the Pro version of Gemini unless you are a Google technology partner. You may have access to the paid version, but that is not the same.
Fair enough. I’m talking about the paid version of Gemini. I didn’t realise there was a VIP version
Now I’m intrigued! In what ways is it better? Any examples you can show?
Gemini Pro 1.5 went general-access today (or yesterday, depending on your timezone).
It's quite a step up from regular gemini - but as you say, depends what you want to do. I'd still put Claude Opus above it.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Going with GDP per capita figures and taking 2010 as a reasonable baseline (when the Tories were elected, before Brexit became an issue) the data is:
UK +16% EU +9%
Unless you think the Brexit campaign and referendum pushed the UK up in 2016 which is perhaps why you want that as the baseline?
The UK v EU comparison has limitations. Bulgaria and the UK were both in the EU, but they are undoubtedly different economies, so why compare them? What you want is to compare the UK in the EU with the UK out of the EU. You could do a before/after Brexit comparison, but there are obvious confounds. You want to compare the UK now with the counterfactual UK now had we stayed, which we can’t do.
It would be better to, at least, compare the UK over the period in question with more similar EU states. The Brexit vote or when Brexit actually happened seem more sensible time points to look at. One could try developing a full regression model, or maybe a full time series model — ARIMA, even GARCH — and look at Brexit in that.
It's a very good point: when we were members of the EU, we were outperforming the Eurozone in particular by around a percent a year since the GFC.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
I’ve just discovered that Claude - the best A.I. chatbot in the world as of today - is not available in the EU due to the EU’s ridiculous new laws and general wankiness
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
Claude is nowhere near as good as the Pro version of Gemini.
I’ve used both and find Claude better. But of course it depends what you want to do
You don't have access to the Pro version of Gemini unless you are a Google technology partner. You may have access to the paid version, but that is not the same.
Fair enough. I’m talking about the paid version of Gemini. I didn’t realise there was a VIP version
Now I’m intrigued! In what ways is it better? Any examples you can show?
Gemini Pro 1.5 went general-access today (or yesterday, depending on your timezone).
It's quite a step up from regular gemini - but as you say, depends what you want to do. I'd still put Claude Opus above it.
The most dazzling verbal stuff I’ve seen from ai recently has all been from Claude opus
OpenAI need to really shine with GPT5 - but they seem very confident that it will
The villains in Moscow look like calm professional soldiers, well versed in using guns
Which supports several different theses. Chechen soldiers angry at Putin? Islamists who want payback for Syria? Hired assassins doing a false flag?
Playing devil's advocate: what expertise do you have to know the difference between 'calm professional soldiers, well versed in using guns', and some yokels who have been playing with AK-47s in the backwoods?
Soldiering is about more than firing guns; terrorism is sadly much simpler. But soldiers can be terrorists (see events passim).
Sadly, I’m basing this opinion on the many hundreds of videos I’ve now watched - as we have all watched - of solders and terrorists and mass shooters in action
There is a certain type that you can spot. They do it methodically and calmly, they don’t shout or rant, they barely break a sweat. They don’t run anywhere: they maybe jog; there is zero emotion
It looks “professional”, it certainly looks like they have shot people before
So my guess would be soldiers more likely than religious militants
But yes, it’s just a guess from an amateur on a balcony in a jungle in Colombia
I haven't, why on God's green earth would I? I don't need that in my brain thanks.
Because it’s impossible to avoid? If you’ve managed to never watch a video or murder or shooting or terrorism in the last 20 years of social media and universal camera phones then bravo, that’s impressive
Thanks, but I don't really think it is very impressive. Perhaps it's because I don't Tweet socially.
I have been watching re-runs of Dempsey and Makepeace recently though, and that is surprisingly violent.
I haven't been following this story but, if true, what on earth were they thinking?
You don't touch the national flag. Ever.
It almost killed British Airways when they did all the wacky tailfins 20 years ago. And Woke wasn't even a thing then.
20? That was in Mrs T's time, surely.
It was.
BA found some idiots who told them to ditch the whole “British thing”
So they came up with a bunch of designs which were mind blowingly average. Sort of middle class white 12 year old does Tribal Art for the end of year completion.
Mrs Thatcher was shown this at a trade fair and reacted by wrapping a handkerchief around the tail of the model
Within days, Richard Branson announced that if BA didn’t want to be the national flag carrier, Virgin would.
And rightly so.
This smacks of a lot of Boardroom Liberals who all think everyone thinks the same as them, or should do so.
It's very difficult to get them to see another point of view, when they're like that, or even take such a thing seriously, so I bet either (a) no-one spoke up against it sensing this or, (b) if they did, were either laughed at or summarily dismissed, possibly both.
And they probably droned on about the importance of psychological safety so people felt free to air views at the same time.
No, it wasn’t about liberals and politics. This was the time of aviation deregulation and freedom of the skies. They wanted to become a global carrier and worried their obvious Britishness made them look too much like an airline you’d only take to and from the UK. BA also had a stuffy identity to foreign travellers. The new livery was about globalising the brand and attempting to compete with the more informal style of Virgin Atlantic. Looking back now it was a pretty good rebrand.
Might have been naive of them not to expect a contrived tabloid backlash, but people trying to give it a retrospective woke badge are getting the wrong end of the stick.
A pretty good rebrand - apart from being hated by the customers and staff, it had to be ditched in a hurry, otherwise Virgin would have staked a claim to being the literal flag carrier.
So apart from the customers, the staff and getting binned by management….
That’s the kind of success that only NU10K celebrates.
Tailfins aside 90% of the rebrand is still with us now. It has stood the test of time. Out went the awkward stuffy triangles, in came the new font (still in use) and the flowing ribbon logo (still in use).
The tailfins divided opinion (well few people really cared but the tabloids claimed to) but look at them now and they are entirely uncontroversial. They were a little ahead of their time - more noughties than 90s.
They ditched the entire non-British rebrand, used the Union flag design for the entire fleet (originally for Concorde only IIRC) and that was a success?
The villains in Moscow look like calm professional soldiers, well versed in using guns
Which supports several different theses. Chechen soldiers angry at Putin? Islamists who want payback for Syria? Hired assassins doing a false flag?
Playing devil's advocate: what expertise do you have to know the difference between 'calm professional soldiers, well versed in using guns', and some yokels who have been playing with AK-47s in the backwoods?
Soldiering is about more than firing guns; terrorism is sadly much simpler. But soldiers can be terrorists (see events passim).
Sadly, I’m basing this opinion on the many hundreds of videos I’ve now watched - as we have all watched - of solders and terrorists and mass shooters in action
There is a certain type that you can spot. They do it methodically and calmly, they don’t shout or rant, they barely break a sweat. They don’t run anywhere: they maybe jog; there is zero emotion
It looks “professional”, it certainly looks like they have shot people before
So my guess would be soldiers more likely than religious militants
But yes, it’s just a guess from an amateur on a balcony in a jungle in Colombia
I haven't, why on God's green earth would I? I don't need that in my brain thanks.
Because it’s impossible to avoid? If you’ve managed to never watch a video or murder or shooting or terrorism in the last 20 years of social media and universal camera phones then bravo, that’s impressive
It's very easy to avoid, unless you're a sick ghoul who hunts it out. I see them occasionally, and rapidly try to skip over them.
You seem to revel in them, and telling people about them.
Yes whatever YAWN. It’s news. I am interested in news. I watch it
You revel in images of pain and hurt; that much is obvious from your words on here, and some of your books.
Many decades ago, the Sunday Times had a picture of a Palestinian suicide bomber in its magazine. It was a head, lying on the pavement, undamaged with eyes closed. But no body. I wish to God I had never seen it as I can still visualise it, and try to avoid such images where I can.
In Putin's current adventure, I was in the kill-all-Russian-invaders mode. Until I saw a picture of a lad, who could not have been over twenty, sitting in the cab of a loggies lorry. It brought home to me that they are people too, being sent by an evil regime to do evil acts. I want them to get out of Ukraine; but if that can be done without any ore deaths, so be it. Unfortunately Ukraine surrendering to Russia will lead to millions more deaths.
Oh do shut up. How do you have an opinion on, say, Gaza, if you firmly refuse to watch any news about it?
How can you have an opinion on October 7 if you’ve not actually seen any images of it?
What's your opinion of Oborne? He's obviously been on a bit of a journey but still seems to me to be a pretty rigorous journalist. The beheaded, burnt alive babies (apols for alliteration) much touted at the time seems to be largely bullshit.
He's a funny one Oborne. I have sympathy with some of his perspectives but he was debating with a pro-Israeli commentator on Spectator TV recently and he was dreadful. Screaming incoherently at the other guy, who was, by contrast, very reasonable sounding. Everyone who commented on the video said it put them off what he was saying.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Indeed. We're held back by the EU. Even so we managed to grow our nominal GDP by an amazing 15% since 2016 while the EU only managed a miserable 21% growth.
Point of order: EU GDP in 2016 included the UK, so I very much doubt that is true.
Furthermore, I think it's more useful to discuss GDP per capital.
25% UK 35% EU per capita increase PPP since 2016 World Bank figures, which I have to admit surprise me.
It is laughable that you are comparing to 2016. At the time you lot said that the reason we didn't have the mass unemployment and interest spike predicted because we were doing great because we were still in the EU. Now you are trying to claim a period of EU membership shackles as part of the post-Brexit age.
No, the right time period to compare to is after we left the EU, de jure and de facto. We fully left on 31 December 2020. That is the measurement date.
OK. Let me adjust.
We're held back by the EU. Between 2019 the last year before Brexit on 31 January 2020 and 2022 the last year for which the World Bank has data the EU only managed a miserable 9% GDP growth. The UK on the other hand grew an amazing ... Sorry it fell by an amazing 6%>
You are being deliberately obtuse. We were in all EU structures as before until December 31st. They just called it the "Implementation Period".
The fawning over the Royal Family really is utterly pathetic.
It's very sad somebody has cancer. Lots of people have cancer.
The Royal Family are newsworthy because, like it or not, they inhabit positions of prominence in our culture and society.
I don’t deny that coverage can be a bit much, but surely you must realise there’s a reason why this is treated the way it is?
On the Irish TV news this evening there was a clip of the White House spokesperson giving their best wishes to the "Duchess of Cam-bridge". Even on a day with lots of other international news - the attack in Moscow, the attack on the dam in Ukraine, the security council veto - and also lots of domestic Irish news - a ministerial resignation, armed police stopping a gang of kidnappers and another episode of the Burke saga - and it still made a prominent place in the running order.
I haven't been following this story but, if true, what on earth were they thinking?
You don't touch the national flag. Ever.
It almost killed British Airways when they did all the wacky tailfins 20 years ago. And Woke wasn't even a thing then.
20? That was in Mrs T's time, surely.
It was.
BA found some idiots who told them to ditch the whole “British thing”
So they came up with a bunch of designs which were mind blowingly average. Sort of middle class white 12 year old does Tribal Art for the end of year completion.
Mrs Thatcher was shown this at a trade fair and reacted by wrapping a handkerchief around the tail of the model
Within days, Richard Branson announced that if BA didn’t want to be the national flag carrier, Virgin would.
And rightly so.
This smacks of a lot of Boardroom Liberals who all think everyone thinks the same as them, or should do so.
It's very difficult to get them to see another point of view, when they're like that, or even take such a thing seriously, so I bet either (a) no-one spoke up against it sensing this or, (b) if they did, were either laughed at or summarily dismissed, possibly both.
And they probably droned on about the importance of psychological safety so people felt free to air views at the same time.
No, it wasn’t about liberals and politics. This was the time of aviation deregulation and freedom of the skies. They wanted to become a global carrier and worried their obvious Britishness made them look too much like an airline you’d only take to and from the UK. BA also had a stuffy identity to foreign travellers. The new livery was about globalising the brand and attempting to compete with the more informal style of Virgin Atlantic. Looking back now it was a pretty good rebrand.
Might have been naive of them not to expect a contrived tabloid backlash, but people trying to give it a retrospective woke badge are getting the wrong end of the stick.
A pretty good rebrand - apart from being hated by the customers and staff, it had to be ditched in a hurry, otherwise Virgin would have staked a claim to being the literal flag carrier.
So apart from the customers, the staff and getting binned by management….
That’s the kind of success that only NU10K celebrates.
Tailfins aside 90% of the rebrand is still with us now. It has stood the test of time. Out went the awkward stuffy triangles, in came the new font (still in use) and the flowing ribbon logo (still in use).
The tailfins divided opinion (well few people really cared but the tabloids claimed to) but look at them now and they are entirely uncontroversial. They were a little ahead of their time - more noughties than 90s.
I am not sure how successful the rebrand can be said to have been if what's left is a typeface and a ribbon flourish thing that one couldn't pick out in a branding identity parade. Good branding is about owning a space in consumers' minds. British Airways owned 'British', and were successful in selling the merits of that position (ballad of the flowers, 'The World's Favourite Airline' etc.). Squandering that was exceedingly foolish. Their more recent efforts 'To fly, to serve' are in many ways a return to the feel of their pre-crappy tailfin identity.
This stringing things out until the last possible moment isn't working out too well for Con is it?
The Tories have been badly hit by the general European slowdown. The public haven't noticed how we have grown faster than the EU since we Brexited. We are still far too dependent on Europe.
Ffs, even after Brexit the Tories can still find ways to blame Europe.
Its certainly true that Europe is undergoing a downturn, thank goodness we'd Brexited so the damage to us was limited.
There are still Labour supporters who blame Gordon Brown's failures on America.
What difference has Brexit made in this regard?
We're no longer spending about £10bn+ per annum on a sclerotic and failing institution to remain tied to a moribund and declining portion of the global economy.
Now if its failing, it can fail without us paying for its failures.
We're still paying £10bn a year to Northern Ireland.
I must admit I'm confused by the idea that leaving the EU would have any significant impact on economic growth.
As a business owner, there are some tiny positives and some tiny negatives, but the reality is that we could always sell to anyone in the world, and we can always buy from anyone in the world. Tariffs are no different for selling to the EU as previously, and paperwork is very mildly worse.
Of course, as most exports from the UK are services anyway, the impact is essentially negligible, especially as most EU countries have implemented legislation to allow cross recognition of professional standards.
What is the mechanism by which EU membership is supposed to either massively boost or massively hinder economic growth?
The big issues companies (and economies face) is the availability of skilled employees, tax and benefits systems. Almost all of those are national competences. Hence the fact that some EU countries have done pretty well, and some have not.
We did better than the EU when we were members, largely because we had a great legal system, were open to inward investment, speak English, and have a flexible labour market.
On the other hand, we have an economy dominated by consumption, due to insufficient household savings. And that number is entirely due to UK government policies.
I support Brexit because I think it's better that decisions are taken closer to people, and Brexit allows that. I support because small and nimble is usually best. I regret the lack of FoM, which has made sourcing skilled engineers slightly harder. But I also recognize that the UK benefits system is essentially incompatible with FoM. I am not displeased to have avoided EU AI regulation, but I also know a couple of European companies that are doing some amazing work there, especially in the medical space, so I doubt it'll have as much effect as people think.
I regret that people have become so wedded to their views that they are unwilling to recognize that almost everything contains positives and negatives. And that those calculations will be different to individual people.
Most of all, I regret that people think Brexit is a cure all for problems that are essentially domestic: our insufficient household savings rate that causes our trade deficit, our inability to free up building regulation, our tax and benefits system that discourage lower skilled workers from finding employment, and most of all a vocational education system that is a pale shadow of those in Germany, Switzerland or Denmark.
I haven't been following this story but, if true, what on earth were they thinking?
You don't touch the national flag. Ever.
It almost killed British Airways when they did all the wacky tailfins 20 years ago. And Woke wasn't even a thing then.
20? That was in Mrs T's time, surely.
It was.
BA found some idiots who told them to ditch the whole “British thing”
So they came up with a bunch of designs which were mind blowingly average. Sort of middle class white 12 year old does Tribal Art for the end of year completion.
Mrs Thatcher was shown this at a trade fair and reacted by wrapping a handkerchief around the tail of the model
Within days, Richard Branson announced that if BA didn’t want to be the national flag carrier, Virgin would.
And rightly so.
This smacks of a lot of Boardroom Liberals who all think everyone thinks the same as them, or should do so.
It's very difficult to get them to see another point of view, when they're like that, or even take such a thing seriously, so I bet either (a) no-one spoke up against it sensing this or, (b) if they did, were either laughed at or summarily dismissed, possibly both.
And they probably droned on about the importance of psychological safety so people felt free to air views at the same time.
No, it wasn’t about liberals and politics. This was the time of aviation deregulation and freedom of the skies. They wanted to become a global carrier and worried their obvious Britishness made them look too much like an airline you’d only take to and from the UK. BA also had a stuffy identity to foreign travellers. The new livery was about globalising the brand and attempting to compete with the more informal style of Virgin Atlantic. Looking back now it was a pretty good rebrand.
Might have been naive of them not to expect a contrived tabloid backlash, but people trying to give it a retrospective woke badge are getting the wrong end of the stick.
I haven't been following this story but, if true, what on earth were they thinking?
You don't touch the national flag. Ever.
It almost killed British Airways when they did all the wacky tailfins 20 years ago. And Woke wasn't even a thing then.
20? That was in Mrs T's time, surely.
It was.
BA found some idiots who told them to ditch the whole “British thing”
So they came up with a bunch of designs which were mind blowingly average. Sort of middle class white 12 year old does Tribal Art for the end of year completion.
Mrs Thatcher was shown this at a trade fair and reacted by wrapping a handkerchief around the tail of the model
Within days, Richard Branson announced that if BA didn’t want to be the national flag carrier, Virgin would.
And they probably droned on about the importance of psychological safety so people felt free to air views at the same time.
No, it wasn’t about liberals and politics. This was the time of aviation deregulation and freedom of the skies. They wanted to become a global carrier and worried their obvious Britishness made them look too much like an airline you’d only take to and from the UK. BA also had a stuffy identity to foreign travellers. The new livery was about globalising the brand and attempting to compete with the more informal style of Virgin Atlantic. Looking back now it was a pretty good rebrand.
Might have been naive of them not to expect a contrived tabloid backlash, but people trying to give it a retrospective woke badge are getting the wrong end of the stick.
A pretty good rebrand - apart from being hated by the customers and staff, it had to be ditched in a hurry, otherwise Virgin would have staked a claim to being the literal flag carrier.
So apart from the customers, the staff and getting binned by management….
That’s the kind of success that only NU10K celebrates.
Tailfins aside 90% of the rebrand is still with us now. It has stood the test of time. Out went the awkward stuffy triangles, in came the new font (still in use) and the flowing ribbon logo (still in use).
The tailfins divided opinion (well few people really cared but the tabloids claimed to) but look at them now and they are entirely uncontroversial. They were a little ahead of their time - more noughties than 90s.
They ditched the entire non-British rebrand, used the Union flag design for the entire fleet (originally for Concorde only IIRC) and that was a success?
It was a complete failure. They blew £60m on it. It was disliked here and was particularly disliked by Americans, who made up the core North America to Great Britain route market and quite liked the British branding. So they lost market share to Virgin. Chris Holt, the head of design management at BA, had to resign, and the CEO was replaced as well.
It lasted less than 4 years. It was definitely a piece of proto-Wokery just read this:
"Chief Executive Robert Ayling declared that BA needed "a corporate identity that will enable [it] to become not just a UK carrier, but a global airline that is based in Britain" and the airline should better reflect the international image of the UK as "friendly, diverse and open to other cultures".
I mean, that tells you just everything you need to know about the guy, doesn't it?
Perhaps this is a window on the difference between fascism and conservatism.
Meanwhile the strapline in the Times is hilarious:
"The prime minster joined Sir Keir Starmer, as well as Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson, in speaking out against the change to the flag on the England kit collar".
Ed Davey was slow off the mark, or nobody cares what he says?
Who?
Oh yeah, you kinda forget.
I'm a little baffled by the fuss over the England kit.
It's a football kit FFS, it will be changed again in a few months, and football supporters will all be bilked for a couple of hundred more, on top of the thousands they are already bilked for on their season tickets.
It's almost as if various Captain Mainwarings, and various mouth breathing * football supporters, are desperate to have a round of tantrums as a method of self-distraction.
I'll stand by the mouth-breathing description; I had a small insight this week into the culture of violence which persists just below the surface in some places.
Perhaps this is a window on the difference between fascism and conservatism.
Meanwhile the strapline in the Times is hilarious:
"The prime minster joined Sir Keir Starmer, as well as Nigel Farage and Lee Anderson, in speaking out against the change to the flag on the England kit collar".
Ed Davey was slow off the mark, or nobody cares what he says?
Who?
Oh yeah, you kinda forget.
I'm a little baffled by the fuss over the England kit.
It's a football kit FFS, it will be changed again in a few months, and football supporters will all be bilked for a couple of hundred more, on top of the thousands they are already bilked for on their season tickets.
It's almost as if various Captain Mainwarings, and various mouth breathing * football supporters, are desperate to have a round of tantrums as a method of self-distraction.
I'll stand by the mouth-breathing description; I had a small insight this week into the culture of violence which persists just below the surface in some places.
I'm not fussed by it; my point is that the flag has been stylised so much it cannot be recognised; it no longer *is* the England flag. The kit does not have the flag on it. Does it bother me? Only if people (e.g. Nike) try to say that it is the flag...
Comments
If you want a long term comparison it needs to be from before Brexit affected the data, which is why 2010 is a reasonable starting point.
No, the right time period to compare to is after we left the EU, de jure and de facto. We fully left on 31 December 2020. That is the measurement date.
That said... my reasons for wanting to leave the EU were entirely economics free. I doubt membership makes a meaningful difference to growth rates in the medium term, compared to domestic policy decisions.
There was no farm shop stunt. William and Kate went to a farm shop and someone took a video of them. This point blank refusal to countenance that the truth is that boring is basically the same as some Americans believing Trump isn’t a fraudster who lost the 2020 election.
So there. That’s a tangible Brexit benefit, you can use the best A.I. in the world because we quit the EU, and those poor saps still trapped in the Brussels quagmire cannot
Moreover this is a belated vindication of one of the Leavers’ key arguments. That we would escape the regressive interfering EU regulations
Might have been naive of them not to expect a contrived tabloid backlash, but people trying to give it a retrospective woke badge are getting the wrong end of the stick.
Oh yeah, you kinda forget.
I am supportive of the switch, I just think Ofcom should have strengthened the mobile networks first as this is what people will rely on in the event the broadband goes down - and these are not good enough as acknowledged by the need of the SRN.
A government can only do so many things at once. The next government could either waste its time obsessing about the UK's relationship with the EU, or it could do something effective about improving skills training, business investment, finance availability, etc, that would help improve Britain's economic performance.
It's possible a new government will do neither, but it should at least try to do the right thing.
Britain has already wasted a decade because of Brexit. Another wasted decade isn't going to help.
The leading A.I. countries are the USA then China. Then probably the UK, France and Canada
Only France figures from the EU. So the EU is already struggling with its A.I. future. And what is their reaction? To introduce the tightest international AI regulation anywhere, making sure they really crush any A.I. start ups and scaring off the overseas companies
https://reason.com/2024/03/22/european-unions-ai-law-will-heavily-regulate-a-technology-lawmakers-dont-understand/
Fared is a Syrian journalist who has suffered immensely under Russian bombardment for nearly an entire decade.
This was his immediate reaction to the Moscow attacks.
A lesson in humanity.
Taking glee in the murder of innocents is what his enemy does, and he is not his enemy.
https://twitter.com/OzKaterji/status/1771298383833043285
“ Any attack targeting civilians is a terrorist attack.”
He should be a duke. Duke Ed Davey. And wear suits made out of shimmering scarlet metallic foil and a pink wizard’s hat all the time. And he could levitate
Imagine Duke Davey literally FLOATING into the Lib Dem conference through an upstairs window in
his vermillion metal suit and pink wizards hat
There’s no way the media would ignore that. No more “forgetting about the Lib Dems”
So apart from the customers, the staff and getting binned by management….
That’s the kind of success that only NU10K celebrates.
Also, I'd still say claude 3 'opus' is better then Gemini 1.5 for a lot of use-cases.
At least based on my experiments so far with the API.
And in truth, it almost certainly had no more than a negligible effect either way.
Most economic policies are domestic. You can be a successful exporter and an EU member. And you can be a complete fuck up too.
Blaming other entities for your problems just means you aren't doing the hard work to fix them yourself.
Now I’m intrigued! In what ways is it better? Any examples you can show?
Because I'm in a discussion of menopause on a more civilized SM site, let me say this abt Princess Kate.
When pre-menopausal women get cancer treatment--if the cancer involves bits affected by hormones, like guts--it sends those women into instant chemical menopause.
https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1771310362698141827
We're held back by the EU. Between 2019 the last year before Brexit on 31 January 2020 and 2022 the last year for which the World Bank has data the EU only managed a miserable 9% GDP growth. The UK on the other hand grew an amazing ... Sorry it fell by an amazing 6%>
It's very sad somebody has cancer. Lots of people have cancer.
Poor Kate. Poor William. Their poor kids
Hopefully they’ve caught something at the earliest possible stage and her treatment will be brief and successful. What a grim time for them
The tailfins divided opinion (well few people really cared but the tabloids claimed to) but look at them now and they are entirely uncontroversial. They were a little ahead of their time - more noughties than 90s.
Lots of families have people with more than one person having cancer. I am afraid the Royal Family are in no way unique in that respect and undoubtedly get better treatment and outcomes than most people. That's not to say it isn't sad - it just is pathetic the attention it all gets.
https://x.com/Jeremy_Hunt/status/1771178427602686228?s=20
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgdly318jeo
It's quite a step up from regular gemini - but as you say, depends what you want to do. I'd still put Claude Opus above it.
However crass that statement is in the SE, imagine how it's going down elsewhere.
OpenAI need to really shine with GPT5 - but they seem very confident that it will
Musk’s Neuralink might be close to curing blindness
“BREAKING: Elon Musk just confirmed that the Blindsight implant is already working in monkeys.
Blindsight is the next Neuralink product after Telepathy. Its aim will be to work on restoring the vision of someone who was born blind.”
https://x.com/cb_doge/status/1770818578935091213?s=20
Imagine. The end of blindness. Extraordinary
I have been watching re-runs of Dempsey and Makepeace recently though, and that is surprisingly violent.
I don’t deny that coverage can be a bit much, but surely you must realise there’s a reason why this is treated the way it is?
Have you seen this one with the quadriplegic guy?
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1770565942168420750?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
What an amazing time to be alive. Crazy breakthroughs every single day
It's a big international news story.
As a business owner, there are some tiny positives and some tiny negatives, but the reality is that we could always sell to anyone in the world, and we can always buy from anyone in the world. Tariffs are no different for selling to the EU as previously, and paperwork is very mildly worse.
Of course, as most exports from the UK are services anyway, the impact is essentially negligible, especially as most EU countries have implemented legislation to allow cross recognition of professional standards.
What is the mechanism by which EU membership is supposed to either massively boost or massively hinder economic growth?
The big issues companies (and economies face) is the availability of skilled employees, tax and benefits systems. Almost all of those are national competences. Hence the fact that some EU countries have done pretty well, and some have not.
We did better than the EU when we were members, largely because we had a great legal system, were open to inward investment, speak English, and have a flexible labour market.
On the other hand, we have an economy dominated by consumption, due to insufficient household savings. And that number is entirely due to UK government policies.
I support Brexit because I think it's better that decisions are taken closer to people, and Brexit allows that. I support because small and nimble is usually best. I regret the lack of FoM, which has made sourcing skilled engineers slightly harder. But I also recognize that the UK benefits system is essentially incompatible with FoM. I am not displeased to have avoided EU AI regulation, but I also know a couple of European companies that are doing some amazing work there, especially in the medical space, so I doubt it'll have as much effect as people think.
I regret that people have become so wedded to their views that they are unwilling to recognize that almost everything contains positives and negatives. And that those calculations will be different to individual people.
Most of all, I regret that people think Brexit is a cure all for problems that are essentially domestic: our insufficient household savings rate that causes our trade deficit, our inability to free up building regulation, our tax and benefits system that discourage lower skilled workers from finding employment, and most of all a vocational education system that is a pale shadow of those in Germany, Switzerland or Denmark.
I'm talking about the England kit and Nike today.
It lasted less than 4 years. It was definitely a piece of proto-Wokery just read this:
"Chief Executive Robert Ayling declared that BA needed "a corporate identity that will enable [it] to become not just a UK carrier, but a global airline that is based in Britain" and the airline should better reflect the international image of the UK as "friendly, diverse and open to other cultures".
I mean, that tells you just everything you need to know about the guy, doesn't it?
It's a football kit FFS, it will be changed again in a few months, and football supporters will all be bilked for a couple of hundred more, on top of the thousands they are already bilked for on their season tickets.
It's almost as if various Captain Mainwarings, and various mouth breathing * football supporters, are desperate to have a round of tantrums as a method of self-distraction.
I'll stand by the mouth-breathing description; I had a small insight this week into the culture of violence which persists just below the surface in some places.