‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Nephew gave up on doing any more education after school and now does gardening/landscaping. Not exactly high powered, but plenty of market for it and he's not 50k in debt. Quite a sane decision if he sticks with it.
Better than some pointless "academic" course that really isn't fit for anything.
This 50% to university thing is going to have to go - but how we get back to 10% without a lot of squealing I don't know.
Not to put a downer on it (good for him). But. Doesn't "plenty of market for it" rather rely on lots of well paid people not having their jobs made obsolete by AI?
Pensioners who are no longer able to maintain their own gardens but thanks to the triple lock can afford to pay someone to do it for them.
For now. That won't last. It isn't the triple lock that makes pensioners able to afford gardeners. It's generous occupational pensions (both public and private). They are becoming rarer and rarer.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
He should have taken the hint long long ago that he was not really up to it.
So now he overturns our liberties after receiving orders from the president of France
Every day he manages to make me hate him just that little bit more
In a remarkable experiment that shows it's not just dogs, an intelligent and highly travelled Camden man turns into a slobbering dog at the sight of a Daily Mail headline. More on page six.
It's not the Daily Mail, it's Starmer
I freely confess I am somewhat unhinged about him. As you were about Boris
I thought my loathing of Gareth Southgate was impressive but my utter abhorrence for Starmer is in a different league. Every thing he does, says, thinks, IS, makes me want to REDACTED, and the intensity of this only intensifies
I said before: it gives me an insight into how some people felt about Thatcher, I could never get my head around those wild emotions she evoked. Now I totally understand
And that's exactly why I feel for you. I hated (yes, the right word) Boris Johnson being PM and I can still recall the misery of it, how long those 3 years seemed. But on a brighter note I also recall the ecstasy of his demise. You possibly have that to look forward to in 2029 when you're 67.
A melancholy thought. Thank God I have my handsome blue room to console me
On a slightly brighter note, Starmer is so clearly shit at this job - and never going to get better - I am pretty certain he will quit before 2029. He will sack Reeves, it won't work, then the spotlight will be on him, and I reckon he'll bail
Certainly possible. More than possible - I rate it above 50% somebody else leads Labour into the next election. But don't ask me who. Has to be a woman, won't be Ange. A conundrum.
Why not Rayner? She's got a bit of oomph, and charisma. She's certainly not to my taste (tho not as bad as the Toolmakersson) - but is she disliked in the party?
Tax dodger. It will stick to her really badly as a leftie in a way it wouldn't for a Tory.
I disagree. They're all venal, she doesn't seem exceptionally so (and I am more than happy to hate on Labour politicos)
For me, as an outsider, she seems the obvious candidate to replace Starmer. She has the charisma which he lacks, she is a she, she is authentically working class (unlike Skyr), she is bright in a way he isn't, she will enthuse echt Labour voters
It's difficult to see her winning an overall majority but I could see her reducing the Reform swing and getting a NOM win. Starmer can't do that, he is already loathed and it is only going to get worse
If Rayner has made arrangements to minimise her tax exposure, then she's just doing what a large number of people with higher earnings or unusual (e.g multiple homes) arrangements will do. You get an accountant, or with a bit of confidence do some research, and you work out the most efficient way of doing it. There are different degrees to this, of course, and some will take it further than others. But I can't really hold it against anyone. Of course, when the "someone" is a Labour politician who typically comes down on the side of higher taxes, it does hit a little differently, but I can see beyond it mostly.
I certainly wouldn't be voting for a party led by Rayner, but I can appreciate that she's fought her way to the top of politics, and that she has more chance of selling a message, a vision, and reaching out and speaking to people, in ways that Starmer just can't. They could do worse than her, IMHO. Another grey suit who believes in precious little would be the worst of all worlds for them.
The other thing with this 'i applied to one million jobs and got nowhere' is that the unemployment rate has been steady at around 4% since around 2015.
Ah, but. When it's I'm educated, was stonkingly well paid, but AI has got rid of my job, and I have no other discernible skills... Then it's a story in the Telegraph.
It's because this unemployment is hitting the middle classes FIRST, isn't that obvious? Copywriters, in this case
So it hits home for Telegraph readers. Many of whom will have kids at uni, or aiming for uni, or out of uni, and everyone is thinking the same thing: Shiiiiiiiit
As my daughter put it, "What are we all going to DO?"
I don’t know about Telegraph readers, but I can’t think of any Telegraph journalists worthy of their employment.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Cabinet makers earn a fortune. The prices commanded for custom building an entire kitchen out of solid wood - each cupboard real joinery - are breath taking.
Jobs to service the very rich. You are either very rich, or you are selling to the very rich.
The other thing with this 'i applied to one million jobs and got nowhere' is that the unemployment rate has been steady at around 4% since around 2015.
Ah, but. When it's I'm educated, was stonkingly well paid, but AI has got rid of my job, and I have no other discernible skills... Then it's a story in the Telegraph.
It's because this unemployment is hitting the middle classes FIRST, isn't that obvious? Copywriters, in this case
So it hits home for Telegraph readers. Many of whom will have kids at uni, or aiming for uni, or out of uni, and everyone is thinking the same thing: Shiiiiiiiit
As my daughter put it, "What are we all going to DO?"
The other factor with applying for jobs is that you don't know which job adverts are for a job where they already know who they want to appoint, but they're running a sham open job application process because it's policy to do so for "fairness".
My daughter's been caught up in this a bit, getting a lot of job interviews, and then hearing from people that there's already someone lined up for the role.
If you want to fix a job, you need to fix it at the job description and person specification. When it gets to interview it is no longer controllable.
Sure they do that, but they still run the interviews, and they get to score the interviews against the specification/description they created.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Nephew gave up on doing any more education after school and now does gardening/landscaping. Not exactly high powered, but plenty of market for it and he's not 50k in debt. Quite a sane decision if he sticks with it.
Better than some pointless "academic" course that really isn't fit for anything.
This 50% to university thing is going to have to go - but how we get back to 10% without a lot of squealing I don't know.
Not to put a downer on it (good for him). But. Doesn't "plenty of market for it" rather rely on lots of well paid people not having their jobs made obsolete by AI?
Pensioners who are no longer able to maintain their own gardens but thanks to the triple lock can afford to pay someone to do it for them.
For now. That won't last. It isn't the triple lock that makes pensioners able to afford gardeners. It's generous occupational pensions (both public and private). They are becoming rarer and rarer.
In this scenario, we end up living in places that look like Pripyat. Seems unlikely...
Maybe the robot UAVs will fly around zapping AI identified weeds with lasers.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Without being funny, you are in academia, its a very different world. I spent quite a number of years in academia, and basically never truly applied for a position, certainly not in the way a traditional job goes down and certainly not how modern corporate employment is (we are copying the Americans as usual). It was all networking, your supervisor knows x or y has money and looking for somebody with this interest, you write to them, there is often mutual understanding of the research, the interview is chatting of your research interests and their problem, perhaps you give a presentation about your previous works. Its quite different to the way modern corporate employment has gone, particularly with LLMs.
This will hit academe soon. Universities are completely doomed. People won't take on £50k debt when there is no job at the end
There will be no job at 18 either though, if your more vivid extrapolations come to pass. Essentially the end of employment.
It is utter Luddite bullshit.
AI will do what technologies have always done, automate shit that we no longer need to do.
So employment will then expand to fill in the gaps, as it always has, including doing some stuff we'd never dream of doing today.
If writing bullshit is your day job, then be afraid, be very afraid.
If you're doing something productive with a human touch? That's different.
No, AI and automation allow those with capital to accumulate more, shifting the rewards even further in the direction away from labour.
The tech bro vision is vast rewards for them, serfdom for us. They need to ask AI what the key ingredient of revolution is.
So now he overturns our liberties after receiving orders from the president of France
Every day he manages to make me hate him just that little bit more
Dystopian Britain. The government tracks your every move.
It doesn't, though, does it. Turn your phone off, nobody knows where you are.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Go for a drive and there are number plate cameras everywhere. Use your credit or debit card and you are logged. It’s harder than you might imagine to completely disappear. How many ring doorbells do you pass? CCTV installations?
Now 99.99% of the time no one is following you. But if little kinabalu should become a suspect in a crime, well there would be the ability to track you.
Yes. Nobody tracks you but it's quite hard to disappear if you're wanted for a crime. That's about the size of it.
And the problem is the definition of what constitutes a crime is expanding at a rapid rate.
You will, probably, be untouched by it all but poke your nose outside NW3, perhaps take a trip home, and you will find this is a real issue.
Elaborate on first para?
Er, what new set of laws have we been debating on here endlessly for months and which at one point was thought might be a threat to PB itself.
For now. That won't last. It isn't the triple lock that makes pensioners able to afford gardeners. It's generous occupational pensions (both public and private). They are becoming rarer and rarer.
This is true. My parents are loaded... They can spend their WFA on a gardener.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Nephew gave up on doing any more education after school and now does gardening/landscaping. Not exactly high powered, but plenty of market for it and he's not 50k in debt. Quite a sane decision if he sticks with it.
Better than some pointless "academic" course that really isn't fit for anything.
This 50% to university thing is going to have to go - but how we get back to 10% without a lot of squealing I don't know.
Not to put a downer on it (good for him). But. Doesn't "plenty of market for it" rather rely on lots of well paid people not having their jobs made obsolete by AI?
Pensioners who are no longer able to maintain their own gardens but thanks to the triple lock can afford to pay someone to do it for them.
For now. That won't last. It isn't the triple lock that makes pensioners able to afford gardeners. It's generous occupational pensions (both public and private). They are becoming rarer and rarer.
In this scenario, we end up living in places that look like Pripyat. Seems unlikely...
Maybe the robot UAVs will fly around zapping AI identified weeds with lasers.
Given we now have plant identifying apps, that’s not that far fetched.
For now. That won't last. It isn't the triple lock that makes pensioners able to afford gardeners. It's generous occupational pensions (both public and private). They are becoming rarer and rarer.
This is true. My parents are loaded... They can spend their WFA on a gardener.
That will get them ahandful of weeds removed or lawn mown once or twice at best
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Nephew gave up on doing any more education after school and now does gardening/landscaping. Not exactly high powered, but plenty of market for it and he's not 50k in debt. Quite a sane decision if he sticks with it.
Better than some pointless "academic" course that really isn't fit for anything.
This 50% to university thing is going to have to go - but how we get back to 10% without a lot of squealing I don't know.
Not to put a downer on it (good for him). But. Doesn't "plenty of market for it" rather rely on lots of well paid people not having their jobs made obsolete by AI?
Pensioners who are no longer able to maintain their own gardens but thanks to the triple lock can afford to pay someone to do it for them.
Being currently exceptionally time poor we pay a chap for two hours a fortnight to generally weed and tidy. It’s £30. Not a huge wage, but he’s happy.
If one of these OpenAllHoursAI geniuses can build me a robot that weeds the bloody garden then I might start to take this all seriously to be honest.
The other thing with this 'i applied to one million jobs and got nowhere' is that the unemployment rate has been steady at around 4% since around 2015.
Ah, but. When it's I'm educated, was stonkingly well paid, but AI has got rid of my job, and I have no other discernible skills... Then it's a story in the Telegraph.
It's because this unemployment is hitting the middle classes FIRST, isn't that obvious? Copywriters, in this case
So it hits home for Telegraph readers. Many of whom will have kids at uni, or aiming for uni, or out of uni, and everyone is thinking the same thing: Shiiiiiiiit
As my daughter put it, "What are we all going to DO?"
Something more productive.
Next question.
Either that, or become gentleman-scholars while our robotic pals do all the work for us very cheaply indeed. I'm up for that.
(There is a bit of a catch- even trickle down economics requires a flow of money down the system for the mass of us to afford to live well enough. The insistence of the new plutocrats that they need to hoard all their money because that's how they keep score in their lives rather messes that up. Andrew Carnegie got that one right.)
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Without being funny, you are in academia, its a very different world. I spent quite a number of years in academia, and basically never truly applied for a position, certainly not in the way a traditional job goes down and certainly not how modern corporate employment is (we are copying the Americans as usual). It was all networking, your supervisor knows x or y has money and looking for somebody with this interest, you write to them, there is often mutual understanding of the research, the interview is chatting of your research interests and their problem, perhaps you give a presentation about your previous works. Its quite different to the way modern corporate employment has gone, particularly with LLMs.
This will hit academe soon. Universities are completely doomed. People won't take on £50k debt when there is no job at the end
There will be no job at 18 either though, if your more vivid extrapolations come to pass. Essentially the end of employment.
It is utter Luddite bullshit.
AI will do what technologies have always done, automate shit that we no longer need to do.
So employment will then expand to fill in the gaps, as it always has, including doing some stuff we'd never dream of doing today.
If writing bullshit is your day job, then be afraid, be very afraid.
If you're doing something productive with a human touch? That's different.
This is true, but the transitions are messy. Many of the ex-miners never got other jobs, because they didn't have the skills, experience, training or lived in the wrong place.
The other thing with this 'i applied to one million jobs and got nowhere' is that the unemployment rate has been steady at around 4% since around 2015.
Ah, but. When it's I'm educated, was stonkingly well paid, but AI has got rid of my job, and I have no other discernible skills... Then it's a story in the Telegraph.
It's because this unemployment is hitting the middle classes FIRST, isn't that obvious? Copywriters, in this case
So it hits home for Telegraph readers. Many of whom will have kids at uni, or aiming for uni, or out of uni, and everyone is thinking the same thing: Shiiiiiiiit
As my daughter put it, "What are we all going to DO?"
I wonder if its also hitting middle class jobs in London hardest.
If so the combination of careers disappearing and unaffordable housing must be life ruining.
So now he overturns our liberties after receiving orders from the president of France
Every day he manages to make me hate him just that little bit more
Dystopian Britain. The government tracks your every move.
It doesn't, though, does it. Turn your phone off, nobody knows where you are.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Go for a drive and there are number plate cameras everywhere. Use your credit or debit card and you are logged. It’s harder than you might imagine to completely disappear. How many ring doorbells do you pass? CCTV installations?
Now 99.99% of the time no one is following you. But if little kinabalu should become a suspect in a crime, well there would be the ability to track you.
Yes. Nobody tracks you but it's quite hard to disappear if you're wanted for a crime. That's about the size of it.
Big tech automatically tracks you by default, not just online, but physically e.g. Google Maps / Waze makes massive revenue for Google. The technology is all there. If it wasn't for some EU laws, we would be like Asia where you walk into a shop, you browse items, big tech can tell what you spent time looking at, you leave without purchasing, they auction off adverts to spam you with deals for that item or similar, all without you ever disclosing your phone number to them or even them buying it.
I'm all for government reining in Big Tech. The issue of our times, I'd say.
You think if they go all digital ID cards they won't want to form a massive database of all that info and leverage this kind of tech? There is absolutely no reason to have ID cards for ID alone.
I do think it will be leveraged, yes. There's little point otherwise.
There is actually plenty of point to create a unique id for everyone. There is also plenty of point in using that unique id as key for other records - medical, educational, employment etc.
This is what every other European nation does. Inexpensively and without fuss.
The problem is empire building and the idea that Minority Report and Demolition Man were guidelines for the future - all records instantly instantly accessible to anyone who wants them in the government. And government appointed contractors. No annoying rules - so that nice policeman interrogating you knows your medical history, for example. Because all policemen are nice.
A simple system of a unique id code (with some good quality checksuming and error proofing) tied to a photo, a name, address, phone number and email wouldn’t cost much. It could be implemented by one smallish IT team. It would scale fairly easily using on demand compute on a few racks of hardware in, say, 6 different government owned basements across the U.K.
The requirement is, in IT terms, fairly trivial. This would give you a physical card, a phone app and a setup to verify a given card, by anyone, for free.
The bigger money would be in the organisation issuing the ids. Best plan would be to reuse staff and org from the Passport Office, probably. Obviously expand personnel for the increased work, but they have the methods and security in place.
The problem is that this isn’t sexy. You can’t justify a Richard Rogers tower. You can’t justify £5m for abstract sculpture for the foyer. Or the logo. Or lots of 6 figure jobs in strategic solutionising the impact on the lemming population by ID cards. You need something for 50,000 people to do.
There's a chance we broadly agree. ID to make things more efficient and secure - but with controls to limit abuse or accident.
I'm possibly unusual, though, in liking the Minority Report concept of arresting murderers before they've done it rather than after. But that's a way off, I'd have thought.
So now he overturns our liberties after receiving orders from the president of France
Every day he manages to make me hate him just that little bit more
Dystopian Britain. The government tracks your every move.
It doesn't, though, does it. Turn your phone off, nobody knows where you are.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Go for a drive and there are number plate cameras everywhere. Use your credit or debit card and you are logged. It’s harder than you might imagine to completely disappear. How many ring doorbells do you pass? CCTV installations?
Now 99.99% of the time no one is following you. But if little kinabalu should become a suspect in a crime, well there would be the ability to track you.
Yes. Nobody tracks you but it's quite hard to disappear if you're wanted for a crime. That's about the size of it.
Big tech automatically tracks you by default, not just online, but physically e.g. Google Maps / Waze makes massive revenue for Google. The technology is all there. If it wasn't for some EU laws, we would be like Asia where you walk into a shop, you browse items, big tech can tell what you spent time looking at, you leave without purchasing, they auction off adverts to spam you with deals for that item or similar, all without you ever disclosing your phone number to them or even them buying it.
I'm all for government reining in Big Tech. The issue of our times, I'd say.
You think if they go all digital ID cards they won't want to form a massive database of all that info and leverage this kind of tech? There is absolutely no reason to have ID cards for ID alone.
I do think it will be leveraged, yes. There's little point otherwise.
There is actually plenty of point to create a unique id for everyone. There is also plenty of point in using that unique id as key for other records - medical, educational, employment etc.
This is what every other European nation does. Inexpensively and without fuss.
The problem is empire building and the idea that Minority Report and Demolition Man were guidelines for the future - all records instantly instantly accessible to anyone who wants them in the government. And government appointed contractors. No annoying rules - so that nice policeman interrogating you knows your medical history, for example. Because all policemen are nice.
A simple system of a unique id code (with some good quality checksuming and error proofing) tied to a photo, a name, address, phone number and email wouldn’t cost much. It could be implemented by one smallish IT team. It would scale fairly easily using on demand compute on a few racks of hardware in, say, 6 different government owned basements across the U.K.
The requirement is, in IT terms, fairly trivial. This would give you a physical card, a phone app and a setup to verify a given card, by anyone, for free.
The bigger money would be in the organisation issuing the ids. Best plan would be to reuse staff and org from the Passport Office, probably. Obviously expand personnel for the increased work, but they have the methods and security in place.
The problem is that this isn’t sexy. You can’t justify a Richard Rogers tower. You can’t justify £5m for abstract sculpture for the foyer. Or the logo. Or lots of 6 figure jobs in strategic solutionising the impact on the lemming population by ID cards. You need something for 50,000 people to do.
I’ve already got lots of digital ID. I have a driving licence, a passport and an NHS number. I would have not issue if these where all one number. As others have said the dangers lie with who gets to access your data, and why.
And a NI Number, which everyone has*, and is unique
* Yes I know foreign nationals might not, and sometimes they end up with two
The passport database is relatively clean. The NHS numbers are a disaster and driving licenses have been issued to non-existent people....
The NI numbers are a joke in terms of data quality.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Nephew gave up on doing any more education after school and now does gardening/landscaping. Not exactly high powered, but plenty of market for it and he's not 50k in debt. Quite a sane decision if he sticks with it.
Better than some pointless "academic" course that really isn't fit for anything.
This 50% to university thing is going to have to go - but how we get back to 10% without a lot of squealing I don't know.
Not to put a downer on it (good for him). But. Doesn't "plenty of market for it" rather rely on lots of well paid people not having their jobs made obsolete by AI?
Pensioners who are no longer able to maintain their own gardens but thanks to the triple lock can afford to pay someone to do it for them.
Being currently exceptionally time poor we pay a chap for two hours a fortnight to generally weed and tidy. It’s £30. Not a huge wage, but he’s happy.
So you're paying £15 an hour? Aldi isn't far behind. I'm delighted he's happy. But it isn't really aspirational. Be difficult to make the rent on that.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Nephew gave up on doing any more education after school and now does gardening/landscaping. Not exactly high powered, but plenty of market for it and he's not 50k in debt. Quite a sane decision if he sticks with it.
Better than some pointless "academic" course that really isn't fit for anything.
This 50% to university thing is going to have to go - but how we get back to 10% without a lot of squealing I don't know.
Not to put a downer on it (good for him). But. Doesn't "plenty of market for it" rather rely on lots of well paid people not having their jobs made obsolete by AI?
Pensioners who are no longer able to maintain their own gardens but thanks to the triple lock can afford to pay someone to do it for them.
For now. That won't last. It isn't the triple lock that makes pensioners able to afford gardeners. It's generous occupational pensions (both public and private). They are becoming rarer and rarer.
In this scenario, we end up living in places that look like Pripyat. Seems unlikely...
Maybe the robot UAVs will fly around zapping AI identified weeds with lasers.
Given we now have plant identifying apps, that’s not that far fetched.
Mrs Flatlander gets paid to identify plants in the field.
The AI apps are getting better but are still way slower for easy species and not good enough for hard ones (where you might need a hand lens). I think it will need field DNA sampling to do the job properly via automation, but someone will still have to wade through the brambles.
For weed zapping in a field, though, that technology already exists, as AI can easily tell what is a crop plant and what is not. https://carbonrobotics.com/laserweeder
So now he overturns our liberties after receiving orders from the president of France
Every day he manages to make me hate him just that little bit more
Dystopian Britain. The government tracks your every move.
It doesn't, though, does it. Turn your phone off, nobody knows where you are.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Go for a drive and there are number plate cameras everywhere. Use your credit or debit card and you are logged. It’s harder than you might imagine to completely disappear. How many ring doorbells do you pass? CCTV installations?
Now 99.99% of the time no one is following you. But if little kinabalu should become a suspect in a crime, well there would be the ability to track you.
Yes. Nobody tracks you but it's quite hard to disappear if you're wanted for a crime. That's about the size of it.
And the problem is the definition of what constitutes a crime is expanding at a rapid rate.
You will, probably, be untouched by it all but poke your nose outside NW3, perhaps take a trip home, and you will find this is a real issue.
Elaborate on first para?
Er, what new set of laws have we been debating on here endlessly for months and which at one point was thought might be a threat to PB itself.
The OSA? Yes, that's new. Anything else?
If ANPR is tracking every vehicle how come so many KSI are the victims of and/or uninsured, disqualified, drugged, drunk, physically unfit, phone using drivers? They don't even bother tracking vehicles with obscured, fake number plates because "they can't trace the registered owner" though that might be changing.
Here's a presumably accurate (it is X) description of police policy towards hate crimes. Nothing to worry about there. Except just about every PB poster could bring such a complaint against every other PB poster with some legitimacy. With the exception of Big G, perhaps.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Who's going to have the income to pay for the woodworking?
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My two are currently interviewing and the jobs market is really tough. Both are considering career changes, which has its own challenges.
So now he overturns our liberties after receiving orders from the president of France
Every day he manages to make me hate him just that little bit more
Dystopian Britain. The government tracks your every move.
It doesn't, though, does it. Turn your phone off, nobody knows where you are.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Go for a drive and there are number plate cameras everywhere. Use your credit or debit card and you are logged. It’s harder than you might imagine to completely disappear. How many ring doorbells do you pass? CCTV installations?
Now 99.99% of the time no one is following you. But if little kinabalu should become a suspect in a crime, well there would be the ability to track you.
Yes. Nobody tracks you but it's quite hard to disappear if you're wanted for a crime. That's about the size of it.
Big tech automatically tracks you by default, not just online, but physically e.g. Google Maps / Waze makes massive revenue for Google. The technology is all there. If it wasn't for some EU laws, we would be like Asia where you walk into a shop, you browse items, big tech can tell what you spent time looking at, you leave without purchasing, they auction off adverts to spam you with deals for that item or similar, all without you ever disclosing your phone number to them or even them buying it.
I'm all for government reining in Big Tech. The issue of our times, I'd say.
You think if they go all digital ID cards they won't want to form a massive database of all that info and leverage this kind of tech? There is absolutely no reason to have ID cards for ID alone.
I do think it will be leveraged, yes. There's little point otherwise.
There is actually plenty of point to create a unique id for everyone. There is also plenty of point in using that unique id as key for other records - medical, educational, employment etc.
This is what every other European nation does. Inexpensively and without fuss.
The problem is empire building and the idea that Minority Report and Demolition Man were guidelines for the future - all records instantly instantly accessible to anyone who wants them in the government. And government appointed contractors. No annoying rules - so that nice policeman interrogating you knows your medical history, for example. Because all policemen are nice.
A simple system of a unique id code (with some good quality checksuming and error proofing) tied to a photo, a name, address, phone number and email wouldn’t cost much. It could be implemented by one smallish IT team. It would scale fairly easily using on demand compute on a few racks of hardware in, say, 6 different government owned basements across the U.K.
The requirement is, in IT terms, fairly trivial. This would give you a physical card, a phone app and a setup to verify a given card, by anyone, for free.
The bigger money would be in the organisation issuing the ids. Best plan would be to reuse staff and org from the Passport Office, probably. Obviously expand personnel for the increased work, but they have the methods and security in place.
The problem is that this isn’t sexy. You can’t justify a Richard Rogers tower. You can’t justify £5m for abstract sculpture for the foyer. Or the logo. Or lots of 6 figure jobs in strategic solutionising the impact on the lemming population by ID cards. You need something for 50,000 people to do.
There's a chance we broadly agree. ID to make things more efficient and secure - but with controls to limit abuse or accident.
I'm possibly unusual, though, in liking the Minority Report concept of arresting murderers before they've done it rather than after. But that's a way off, I'd have thought.
Did you watch the film? The whole point was the concept is wrong.
Bit like Gattaca.
Still, we'll all be rooting for you when the Reform Government arrest you for pre-crime. Maybe we'll bake a cake with a file in it.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Nephew gave up on doing any more education after school and now does gardening/landscaping. Not exactly high powered, but plenty of market for it and he's not 50k in debt. Quite a sane decision if he sticks with it.
Better than some pointless "academic" course that really isn't fit for anything.
This 50% to university thing is going to have to go - but how we get back to 10% without a lot of squealing I don't know.
Not to put a downer on it (good for him). But. Doesn't "plenty of market for it" rather rely on lots of well paid people not having their jobs made obsolete by AI?
Pensioners who are no longer able to maintain their own gardens but thanks to the triple lock can afford to pay someone to do it for them.
Being currently exceptionally time poor we pay a chap for two hours a fortnight to generally weed and tidy. It’s £30. Not a huge wage, but he’s happy.
So you're paying £15 an hour? Aldi isn't far behind. I'm delighted he's happy. But it isn't really aspirational. Be difficult to make the rent on that.
Not if there's no rent to pay.
An oldie who wants to keep active can do the gardens of older oldies for cash in hand.
Clegg on Newsnight complaining about 30 people a day being arrested for things they post online. (Might not have got the wording exactly right).
When I was about twenty I was stopped by the police for doing 90 on the A46 (three lane section near Leamington). At the time I asked why I was stopped when there was nothing else on the road yet on the M69 nearby there would be hundreds doing the speed I had done. I think it’s pretty obvious why.
Arresting Linehan for his rude posting when millions of other far worse posts exist is a bit like my three points.
We really need to get back to the idea that there is no right not to be offended.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Nephew gave up on doing any more education after school and now does gardening/landscaping. Not exactly high powered, but plenty of market for it and he's not 50k in debt. Quite a sane decision if he sticks with it.
Better than some pointless "academic" course that really isn't fit for anything.
This 50% to university thing is going to have to go - but how we get back to 10% without a lot of squealing I don't know.
Not to put a downer on it (good for him). But. Doesn't "plenty of market for it" rather rely on lots of well paid people not having their jobs made obsolete by AI?
Pensioners who are no longer able to maintain their own gardens but thanks to the triple lock can afford to pay someone to do it for them.
For now. That won't last. It isn't the triple lock that makes pensioners able to afford gardeners. It's generous occupational pensions (both public and private). They are becoming rarer and rarer.
In this scenario, we end up living in places that look like Pripyat. Seems unlikely...
Maybe the robot UAVs will fly around zapping AI identified weeds with lasers.
Given we now have plant identifying apps, that’s not that far fetched.
Mrs Flatlander gets paid to identify plants in the field.
The AI apps are getting better but are still way slower for easy species and not good enough for hard ones (where you might need a hand lens). I think it will need field DNA sampling to do the job properly via automation, but someone will still have to wade through the brambles.
For weed zapping in a field, though, that technology already exists, as AI can easily tell what is a crop plant and what is not. https://carbonrobotics.com/laserweeder
So now he overturns our liberties after receiving orders from the president of France
Every day he manages to make me hate him just that little bit more
Dystopian Britain. The government tracks your every move.
It doesn't, though, does it. Turn your phone off, nobody knows where you are.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Go for a drive and there are number plate cameras everywhere. Use your credit or debit card and you are logged. It’s harder than you might imagine to completely disappear. How many ring doorbells do you pass? CCTV installations?
Now 99.99% of the time no one is following you. But if little kinabalu should become a suspect in a crime, well there would be the ability to track you.
Yes. Nobody tracks you but it's quite hard to disappear if you're wanted for a crime. That's about the size of it.
Big tech automatically tracks you by default, not just online, but physically e.g. Google Maps / Waze makes massive revenue for Google. The technology is all there. If it wasn't for some EU laws, we would be like Asia where you walk into a shop, you browse items, big tech can tell what you spent time looking at, you leave without purchasing, they auction off adverts to spam you with deals for that item or similar, all without you ever disclosing your phone number to them or even them buying it.
I'm all for government reining in Big Tech. The issue of our times, I'd say.
You think if they go all digital ID cards they won't want to form a massive database of all that info and leverage this kind of tech? There is absolutely no reason to have ID cards for ID alone.
I do think it will be leveraged, yes. There's little point otherwise.
There is actually plenty of point to create a unique id for everyone. There is also plenty of point in using that unique id as key for other records - medical, educational, employment etc.
This is what every other European nation does. Inexpensively and without fuss.
The problem is empire building and the idea that Minority Report and Demolition Man were guidelines for the future - all records instantly instantly accessible to anyone who wants them in the government. And government appointed contractors. No annoying rules - so that nice policeman interrogating you knows your medical history, for example. Because all policemen are nice.
A simple system of a unique id code (with some good quality checksuming and error proofing) tied to a photo, a name, address, phone number and email wouldn’t cost much. It could be implemented by one smallish IT team. It would scale fairly easily using on demand compute on a few racks of hardware in, say, 6 different government owned basements across the U.K.
The requirement is, in IT terms, fairly trivial. This would give you a physical card, a phone app and a setup to verify a given card, by anyone, for free.
The bigger money would be in the organisation issuing the ids. Best plan would be to reuse staff and org from the Passport Office, probably. Obviously expand personnel for the increased work, but they have the methods and security in place.
The problem is that this isn’t sexy. You can’t justify a Richard Rogers tower. You can’t justify £5m for abstract sculpture for the foyer. Or the logo. Or lots of 6 figure jobs in strategic solutionising the impact on the lemming population by ID cards. You need something for 50,000 people to do.
There's a chance we broadly agree. ID to make things more efficient and secure - but with controls to limit abuse or accident.
I'm possibly unusual, though, in liking the Minority Report concept of arresting murderers before they've done it rather than after. But that's a way off, I'd have thought.
Did you watch the film? The whole point was the concept is wrong.
Bit like Gattaca.
Still, we'll all be rooting for you when the Reform Government arrest you for pre-crime. Maybe we'll bake a cake with a file in it.
As always it's great when the politicians you agree with use it against your enemies, not so great when they get into power and use it against you.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Nephew gave up on doing any more education after school and now does gardening/landscaping. Not exactly high powered, but plenty of market for it and he's not 50k in debt. Quite a sane decision if he sticks with it.
Better than some pointless "academic" course that really isn't fit for anything.
This 50% to university thing is going to have to go - but how we get back to 10% without a lot of squealing I don't know.
Not to put a downer on it (good for him). But. Doesn't "plenty of market for it" rather rely on lots of well paid people not having their jobs made obsolete by AI?
Pensioners who are no longer able to maintain their own gardens but thanks to the triple lock can afford to pay someone to do it for them.
Being currently exceptionally time poor we pay a chap for two hours a fortnight to generally weed and tidy. It’s £30. Not a huge wage, but he’s happy.
So you're paying £15 an hour? Aldi isn't far behind. I'm delighted he's happy. But it isn't really aspirational. Be difficult to make the rent on that.
He’s an older chap. I don’t know his situation. He may have no mortgage. Or married to someone with a separate income.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Without being funny, you are in academia, its a very different world. I spent quite a number of years in academia, and basically never truly applied for a position, certainly not in the way a traditional job goes down and certainly not how modern corporate employment is (we are copying the Americans as usual). It was all networking, your supervisor knows x or y has money and looking for somebody with this interest, you write to them, there is often mutual understanding of the research, the interview is chatting of your research interests and their problem, perhaps you give a presentation about your previous works. Its quite different to the way modern corporate employment has gone, particularly with LLMs.
This will hit academe soon. Universities are completely doomed. People won't take on £50k debt when there is no job at the end
There will be no job at 18 either though, if your more vivid extrapolations come to pass. Essentially the end of employment.
It is utter Luddite bullshit.
AI will do what technologies have always done, automate shit that we no longer need to do.
So employment will then expand to fill in the gaps, as it always has, including doing some stuff we'd never dream of doing today.
If writing bullshit is your day job, then be afraid, be very afraid.
If you're doing something productive with a human touch? That's different.
Are we going to start funding social care because of the robots?
Personally, if I were a young person, I would try to develop skills that our LLM Overlords would value. Something like chrome polishing, screen cleaning, cable replugging, fan declogging, that kind of thing.
So now he overturns our liberties after receiving orders from the president of France
Every day he manages to make me hate him just that little bit more
Dystopian Britain. The government tracks your every move.
It doesn't, though, does it. Turn your phone off, nobody knows where you are.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Go for a drive and there are number plate cameras everywhere. Use your credit or debit card and you are logged. It’s harder than you might imagine to completely disappear. How many ring doorbells do you pass? CCTV installations?
Now 99.99% of the time no one is following you. But if little kinabalu should become a suspect in a crime, well there would be the ability to track you.
Yes. Nobody tracks you but it's quite hard to disappear if you're wanted for a crime. That's about the size of it.
Big tech automatically tracks you by default, not just online, but physically e.g. Google Maps / Waze makes massive revenue for Google. The technology is all there. If it wasn't for some EU laws, we would be like Asia where you walk into a shop, you browse items, big tech can tell what you spent time looking at, you leave without purchasing, they auction off adverts to spam you with deals for that item or similar, all without you ever disclosing your phone number to them or even them buying it.
I'm all for government reining in Big Tech. The issue of our times, I'd say.
You think if they go all digital ID cards they won't want to form a massive database of all that info and leverage this kind of tech? There is absolutely no reason to have ID cards for ID alone.
I do think it will be leveraged, yes. There's little point otherwise.
There is actually plenty of point to create a unique id for everyone. There is also plenty of point in using that unique id as key for other records - medical, educational, employment etc.
This is what every other European nation does. Inexpensively and without fuss.
The problem is empire building and the idea that Minority Report and Demolition Man were guidelines for the future - all records instantly instantly accessible to anyone who wants them in the government. And government appointed contractors. No annoying rules - so that nice policeman interrogating you knows your medical history, for example. Because all policemen are nice.
A simple system of a unique id code (with some good quality checksuming and error proofing) tied to a photo, a name, address, phone number and email wouldn’t cost much. It could be implemented by one smallish IT team. It would scale fairly easily using on demand compute on a few racks of hardware in, say, 6 different government owned basements across the U.K.
The requirement is, in IT terms, fairly trivial. This would give you a physical card, a phone app and a setup to verify a given card, by anyone, for free.
The bigger money would be in the organisation issuing the ids. Best plan would be to reuse staff and org from the Passport Office, probably. Obviously expand personnel for the increased work, but they have the methods and security in place.
The problem is that this isn’t sexy. You can’t justify a Richard Rogers tower. You can’t justify £5m for abstract sculpture for the foyer. Or the logo. Or lots of 6 figure jobs in strategic solutionising the impact on the lemming population by ID cards. You need something for 50,000 people to do.
There's a chance we broadly agree. ID to make things more efficient and secure - but with controls to limit abuse or accident.
I'm possibly unusual, though, in liking the Minority Report concept of arresting murderers before they've done it rather than after. But that's a way off, I'd have thought.
Did you watch the film? The whole point was the concept is wrong.
Bit like Gattaca.
Still, we'll all be rooting for you when the Reform Government arrest you for pre-crime. Maybe we'll bake a cake with a file in it.
As always it's great when the politicians you agree with use it against your enemies, not so great when they get into power and use it against you.
I don't see the problem. As UnDictator, we will need to arrest all the retired accountants, because we will have determined, using the Scientific Theory of Malmesburyism, that they have a 96.8% probability of perpetrating Acts Against The State.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
Personally, if I were a young person, I would try to develop skills that our LLM Overlords would value. Something like chrome polishing, screen cleaning, cable replugging, fan declogging, that kind of thing.
Or be in charge of the big switch on the wall that provides the power.
Anyways. First day back at school. If anyone is in despair at the jobs market, remember they can instantly gain employment as a supply Teaching Assistant in a SEN school by merely brandishing an Enhanced DBS. They are desperate, and you couldn't be any worse. If you don't mind being sworn at, assaulted, urinated on or reported as a paedophile for £95 a day. Or a "proper job" as some would have it.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My two are currently interviewing and the jobs market is really tough. Both are considering career changes, which has its own challenges.
The jobs market was a total nightmare when I graduated.
Personally, if I were a young person, I would try to develop skills that our LLM Overlords would value. Something like chrome polishing, screen cleaning, cable replugging, fan declogging, that kind of thing.
So now he overturns our liberties after receiving orders from the president of France
Every day he manages to make me hate him just that little bit more
In a remarkable experiment that shows it's not just dogs, an intelligent and highly travelled Camden man turns into a slobbering dog at the sight of a Daily Mail headline. More on page six.
It's not the Daily Mail, it's Starmer
I freely confess I am somewhat unhinged about him. As you were about Boris
I thought my loathing of Gareth Southgate was impressive but my utter abhorrence for Starmer is in a different league. Every thing he does, says, thinks, IS, makes me want to REDACTED, and the intensity of this only intensifies
I said before: it gives me an insight into how some people felt about Thatcher, I could never get my head around those wild emotions she evoked. Now I totally understand
And that's exactly why I feel for you. I hated (yes, the right word) Boris Johnson being PM and I can still recall the misery of it, how long those 3 years seemed. But on a brighter note I also recall the ecstasy of his demise. You possibly have that to look forward to in 2029 when you're 67.
A melancholy thought. Thank God I have my handsome blue room to console me
On a slightly brighter note, Starmer is so clearly shit at this job - and never going to get better - I am pretty certain he will quit before 2029. He will sack Reeves, it won't work, then the spotlight will be on him, and I reckon he'll bail
Certainly possible. More than possible - I rate it above 50% somebody else leads Labour into the next election. But don't ask me who. Has to be a woman, won't be Ange. A conundrum.
Why not Rayner? She's got a bit of oomph, and charisma. She's certainly not to my taste (tho not as bad as the Toolmakersson) - but is she disliked in the party?
If I was Angela Rayner I would be more concerned than ever about retaining my seat at the next GE after the wall to wall media coverage of her living arrangements over the last week, the optics of claiming her Brighton home as her main residence look terrible when your constituency is over 250 miles away.
Anyways. First day back at school. If anyone is in despair at the jobs market, remember they can instantly gain employment as a supply Teaching Assistant in a SEN school by merely brandishing an Enhanced DBS. They are desperate, and you couldn't be any worse. If you don't mind being sworn at, assaulted, urinated on or reported as a paedophile for £95 a day. Or a "proper job" as some would have it.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Cabinet makers earn a fortune. The prices commanded for custom building an entire kitchen out of solid wood - each cupboard real joinery - are breath taking.
These guys charge a fortune, and they do all real joinery
but read the small print and it looks a lot like they make it from MDF... The main carcass of the Oxford Furniture is built using a high density engineered timber. This engineered timber is made using a combination of hardwood and epoxy resin which is formed under intense pressure to create a very dense, stable material which is the perfect base for building painted furniture.
Here's a presumably accurate (it is X) description of police policy towards hate crimes. Nothing to worry about there. Except just about every PB poster could bring such a complaint against every other PB poster with some legitimacy. With the exception of Big G, perhaps.
Interesting that "All reports undergo detailed investigation, exploring evidence and assessing whether the incident qualifies as a hate crime or non-crime hate incident."
Yet it seems if you ring them and say someone is shoplifting they say someone might come around and give a crime number next week.
The government is saying that the Linenah arrest is a "police matter".
But don't we have Police and Crime Commissioners?
Aren't they supposed to be the way that voters can exert some control over policing matters?
Any word from the PCC?
It's the Met, so not PCC in control. It is the Home Secretary, though neither she nor PCCs should interfere in operational decisions.
So what do PCCs do?
I never agreed with the idea in the first place - more Cameron/Steve Hilton bollocks - but i did at least think it meant there was supposed to be some link between the voters and putting pressure on police over policing policy and actions.
Here's a presumably accurate (it is X) description of police policy towards hate crimes. Nothing to worry about there. Except just about every PB poster could bring such a complaint against every other PB poster with some legitimacy. With the exception of Big G, perhaps.
Interesting that "All reports undergo detailed investigation, exploring evidence and assessing whether the incident qualifies as a hate crime or non-crime hate incident."
Yet it seems if you ring them and say someone is shoplifting they say someone might come around and give a crime number next week.
The solution to this may be to found a religion based solely on private property rights.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
He definitely, like JKR, know exactly what they are doing and the reactions it will cause, and just can't help themselves when it comes to social media. But that doesn't mean the plod should be arresting him because he constantly make punchy tweets.
Anyways. First day back at school. If anyone is in despair at the jobs market, remember they can instantly gain employment as a supply Teaching Assistant in a SEN school by merely brandishing an Enhanced DBS. They are desperate, and you couldn't be any worse. If you don't mind being sworn at, assaulted, urinated on or reported as a paedophile for £95 a day. Or a "proper job" as some would have it.
I don't think 'paedophile' is a proper job.
You'll never get hired by the BBC*** with that attitude.
*** 1970s BBC to be clear.*
** Or 1990s.*
* 100% not now that they have 100% cleared the decks.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
So now he overturns our liberties after receiving orders from the president of France
Every day he manages to make me hate him just that little bit more
Dystopian Britain. The government tracks your every move.
It doesn't, though, does it. Turn your phone off, nobody knows where you are.
I wouldn’t be so sure. Go for a drive and there are number plate cameras everywhere. Use your credit or debit card and you are logged. It’s harder than you might imagine to completely disappear. How many ring doorbells do you pass? CCTV installations?
Now 99.99% of the time no one is following you. But if little kinabalu should become a suspect in a crime, well there would be the ability to track you.
Yes. Nobody tracks you but it's quite hard to disappear if you're wanted for a crime. That's about the size of it.
And the problem is the definition of what constitutes a crime is expanding at a rapid rate.
You will, probably, be untouched by it all but poke your nose outside NW3, perhaps take a trip home, and you will find this is a real issue.
Elaborate on first para?
Er, what new set of laws have we been debating on here endlessly for months and which at one point was thought might be a threat to PB itself.
The OSA? Yes, that's new. Anything else?
If ANPR is tracking every vehicle how come so many KSI are the victims of and/or uninsured, disqualified, drugged, drunk, physically unfit, phone using drivers? They don't even bother tracking vehicles with obscured, fake number plates because "they can't trace the registered owner" though that might be changing.
Probably because our roads are exceptionally safe, pretty much at a record that they have never been safer, so the exceptions not driving fit are the ones who cause the accidents.
Though I did get stopped once by a cop whose ANPR flagged my car as uninsured. To which I was very confused, which he didn't seem to buy for a second until I showed him my insurance documents, at which point the demeanor improved markably. Turned out that there was a typo on the reg plate for my insurance, which satisfied the cop and I had to call the insurance company the following week to update their records.
By that point I'd been driving for seven months so certainly could have been stopped sooner.
I don't think we are quite in a UK Gilts doom loop quite yet, but its on the radar. Government borrowing up, the premium for debt rising, real inflation adjusted GDP stagnant, its not a pretty picture of UK PLC.
The UK may not be alone in the rising bond yield environment, but its way too easy a target for what some might call speculators or others may call it the people who lend the UK government the money.
The government is saying that the Linenah arrest is a "police matter".
But don't we have Police and Crime Commissioners?
Aren't they supposed to be the way that voters can exert some control over policing matters?
Any word from the PCC?
It's the Met, so not PCC in control. It is the Home Secretary, though neither she nor PCCs should interfere in operational decisions.
So what do PCCs do?
I never agreed with the idea in the first place - more Cameron/Steve Hilton bollocks - but i did at least think it meant there was supposed to be some link between the voters and putting pressure on police over policing policy and actions.
Once in a while you get to make a grubby mark on a bit of paper. What more do you want? Sheesh. You people are so demanding.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
I'd like a gap between "not a role model" and "illegal"... Quite a big gap as it happens.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Yes, he should have spent more time building his skills to better prepare him for a job.
My guess is this is the core problem. His expertise is in an area that LLMs have and will even more so eat the role. If he doesn't have much to add beyond crafting words nicely, its a difficult hire.
Honestly, he should have spent two years doing woodworking or something. People always need cupboards built and doors adjusting. Electrical work is what I'd do today.
Having observed the trades as we had our extension done I think I’d agree. Building (bricks, blocks, concreting etc) looked like hard graft. Woodwork not as bad. Plumbing, even with an entirely new installation still seemed to involve getting into tight spaces and odd angles. But the sparkies generally seemed to have it best.
Nephew gave up on doing any more education after school and now does gardening/landscaping. Not exactly high powered, but plenty of market for it and he's not 50k in debt. Quite a sane decision if he sticks with it.
Better than some pointless "academic" course that really isn't fit for anything.
This 50% to university thing is going to have to go - but how we get back to 10% without a lot of squealing I don't know.
Not to put a downer on it (good for him). But. Doesn't "plenty of market for it" rather rely on lots of well paid people not having their jobs made obsolete by AI?
Pensioners who are no longer able to maintain their own gardens but thanks to the triple lock can afford to pay someone to do it for them.
Being currently exceptionally time poor we pay a chap for two hours a fortnight to generally weed and tidy. It’s £30. Not a huge wage, but he’s happy.
So you're paying £15 an hour? Aldi isn't far behind. I'm delighted he's happy. But it isn't really aspirational. Be difficult to make the rent on that.
Depends if the income is declared or not.
£15 cash in hand is easier to make the rent with (on top of benefits) than £15 salaried minus income tax minus National Insurance minus taper etc
We need to ensure legitimate work pays by letting people keep more of what they work for.
The government is saying that the Linenah arrest is a "police matter".
But don't we have Police and Crime Commissioners?
Aren't they supposed to be the way that voters can exert some control over policing matters?
Any word from the PCC?
It's the Met, so not PCC in control. It is the Home Secretary, though neither she nor PCCs should interfere in operational decisions.
So what do PCCs do?
I never agreed with the idea in the first place - more Cameron/Steve Hilton bollocks - but i did at least think it meant there was supposed to be some link between the voters and putting pressure on police over policing policy and actions.
The super duper idea was that the populace would jubilantly throw themselves under the benevolent rule of a CONSERVATIVE PPC . And live happily ever after. As is, of course, right and proper. Unfortunately. Reality intervened. Therefore David Cameron lost interest.
I don't think we are quite in a UK Gilts doom loop quite yet, but its on the radar. Government borrowing up, the premium for debt rising, real inflation adjusted GDP stagnant, its not a pretty picture of UK PLC.
The UK may not be alone in the rising bond yield environment, but its way too easy a target for what some might call speculators or others may call it the people who lend the UK government the money.
It’s fairly comic to call the people investing in government securities “speculators”. Such securities are supposed to be the ultimate in risk free investment, after all.
And especially since the reason for the rise in the effective rate is people *not* buying.
I don't think we are quite in a UK Gilts doom loop quite yet, but its on the radar. Government borrowing up, the premium for debt rising, real inflation adjusted GDP stagnant, its not a pretty picture of UK PLC.
The UK may not be alone in the rising bond yield environment, but its way too easy a target for what some might call speculators or others may call it the people who lend the UK government the money.
What's the best thing we can do to alleviate the sitiuation?
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
I do aspire to a US definition of free speech, while wanting civil role models.
How do you teach it? How does a Year 9 Maths Teacher teach trigonometry? How does a Year 8 English Teacher teach Macbeth? By modelling, using your professionalism and hoping they take in some of it.
Doesn't mean it should be the law that everyone quotes Macbeth in daily life, or uses trig, or speaks civilly.
Part of being a grown up is choosing whether to make good or bad choices, the state shouldn't be making that choice for you. Nor ultimately can teachers, or TAs.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Without being funny, you are in academia, its a very different world. I spent quite a number of years in academia, and basically never truly applied for a position, certainly not in the way a traditional job goes down and certainly not how modern corporate employment is (we are copying the Americans as usual). It was all networking, your supervisor knows x or y has money and looking for somebody with this interest, you write to them, there is often mutual understanding of the research, the interview is chatting of your research interests and their problem, perhaps you give a presentation about your previous works. Its quite different to the way modern corporate employment has gone, particularly with LLMs.
This will hit academe soon. Universities are completely doomed. People won't take on £50k debt when there is no job at the end
There will be no job at 18 either though, if your more vivid extrapolations come to pass. Essentially the end of employment.
It is utter Luddite bullshit.
AI will do what technologies have always done, automate shit that we no longer need to do.
So employment will then expand to fill in the gaps, as it always has, including doing some stuff we'd never dream of doing today.
If writing bullshit is your day job, then be afraid, be very afraid.
If you're doing something productive with a human touch? That's different.
This is true, but the transitions are messy. Many of the ex-miners never got other jobs, because they didn't have the skills, experience, training or lived in the wrong place.
Exactly. The agricultural revolution was a huge advance for humankind, but it also meant the clearing of people off the land to fishing villages, and eventually to places like Canada. It's enormously disruptive and not necessarily a good thing for everyone, even if overall we experience economic growth.
The other thing Barty misses is that technological progress often means we don't have to work as much. 9 to 5, Saturday off, holidays and so on. I think AI is as likely to deliver a 3-day working week for the middle class as it is a significant change in the kind of work we do. The balance between work and leisure is shifting for those of us lucky enough to have some capital; productivity gains will be offset by a reduction in hours worked.
There are some big questions about what this means about the shape of the economy. Health, culture, sport will likely grow as proportions, but I'm just guessing.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
I do aspire to a US definition of free speech, while wanting civil role models.
How do you teach it? How does a Year 9 Maths Teacher teach trigonometry? How does a Year 8 English Teacher teach Macbeth? By modelling, using your professionalism and hoping they take in some of it.
Doesn't mean it should be the law that everyone quotes Macbeth in daily life, or uses trig, or speaks civilly.
Part of being a grown up is choosing whether to make good or bad choices, the state shouldn't be making that choice for you. Nor ultimately can teachers, or TAs.
Well fuck off then spacker. That's everyday free speech in a classroom. Every moment. Of every day. Every single time you worked up the courage to vocalise your feelings. Imagine if that was your life.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
I do aspire to a US definition of free speech, while wanting civil role models.
How do you teach it? How does a Year 9 Maths Teacher teach trigonometry? How does a Year 8 English Teacher teach Macbeth? By modelling, using your professionalism and hoping they take in some of it.
Doesn't mean it should be the law that everyone quotes Macbeth in daily life, or uses trig, or speaks civilly.
Part of being a grown up is choosing whether to make good or bad choices, the state shouldn't be making that choice for you. Nor ultimately can teachers, or TAs.
Well fuck off then spacker. That's everyday free speech in a classroom. Every moment. Of every day. Imagine if that was your life.
My daughter started (at her local, standard state) secondary school today and that is not the everyday speech, free or otherwise, that she's been brought up with or that her new school would ever tolerate.
If she said that to a teacher once, let alone every day, I'd fully expect the teacher to issue her a consequence and I'd back that up at home too.
Is it every day language in a challenging behaviour unit? Perhaps, but then that's why the kids are in a challenging behaviour unit, its not supposed to be normal behaviour and isn't acceptable every day already.
I don't think we are quite in a UK Gilts doom loop quite yet, but its on the radar. Government borrowing up, the premium for debt rising, real inflation adjusted GDP stagnant, its not a pretty picture of UK PLC.
The UK may not be alone in the rising bond yield environment, but its way too easy a target for what some might call speculators or others may call it the people who lend the UK government the money.
What's the best thing we can do to alleviate the sitiuation?
a) Stop the BoE doing QT.
They announce their decision in next couple of weeks.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Without being funny, you are in academia, its a very different world. I spent quite a number of years in academia, and basically never truly applied for a position, certainly not in the way a traditional job goes down and certainly not how modern corporate employment is (we are copying the Americans as usual). It was all networking, your supervisor knows x or y has money and looking for somebody with this interest, you write to them, there is often mutual understanding of the research, the interview is chatting of your research interests and their problem, perhaps you give a presentation about your previous works. Its quite different to the way modern corporate employment has gone, particularly with LLMs.
This will hit academe soon. Universities are completely doomed. People won't take on £50k debt when there is no job at the end
There will be no job at 18 either though, if your more vivid extrapolations come to pass. Essentially the end of employment.
It is utter Luddite bullshit.
AI will do what technologies have always done, automate shit that we no longer need to do.
So employment will then expand to fill in the gaps, as it always has, including doing some stuff we'd never dream of doing today.
If writing bullshit is your day job, then be afraid, be very afraid.
If you're doing something productive with a human touch? That's different.
This is true, but the transitions are messy. Many of the ex-miners never got other jobs, because they didn't have the skills, experience, training or lived in the wrong place.
Exactly. The agricultural revolution was a huge advance for humankind, but it also meant the clearing of people off the land to fishing villages, and eventually to places like Canada. It's enormously disruptive and not necessarily a good thing for everyone, even if overall we experience economic growth.
The other thing Barty misses is that technological progress often means we don't have to work as much. 9 to 5, Saturday off, holidays and so on. I think AI is as likely to deliver a 3-day working week for the middle class as it is a significant change in the kind of work we do. The balance between work and leisure is shifting for those of us lucky enough to have some capital; productivity gains will be offset by a reduction in hours worked.
There are some big questions about what this means about the shape of the economy. Health, culture, sport will likely grow as proportions, but I'm just guessing.
So chaos leads to evolution and improvements over time. Not only have I not missed it, I've said as much repeatedly.
The problem is too many people want staid stability over disruptive improvements.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
I do aspire to a US definition of free speech, while wanting civil role models.
How do you teach it? How does a Year 9 Maths Teacher teach trigonometry? How does a Year 8 English Teacher teach Macbeth? By modelling, using your professionalism and hoping they take in some of it.
Doesn't mean it should be the law that everyone quotes Macbeth in daily life, or uses trig, or speaks civilly.
Part of being a grown up is choosing whether to make good or bad choices, the state shouldn't be making that choice for you. Nor ultimately can teachers, or TAs.
Well fuck off then spacker. That's everyday free speech in a classroom. Every moment. Of every day. Imagine if that was your life.
My daughter started (at her local, standard state) secondary school today and that is not the everyday speech, free or otherwise, that she's been brought up with or that her new school would ever tolerate.
If she said that to a teacher once, let alone every day, I'd fully expect the teacher to issue her a consequence and I'd back that up at home too.
Is it every day language in a challenging behaviour unit? Perhaps, but then that's why the kids are in a challenging behaviour unit, its not supposed to be normal behaviour and isn't acceptable every day already.
Yeah. But it's free speech US style. Why aren't you standing up and applauding it? Because that acceptability is really what you are arguing for.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
I do aspire to a US definition of free speech, while wanting civil role models.
How do you teach it? How does a Year 9 Maths Teacher teach trigonometry? How does a Year 8 English Teacher teach Macbeth? By modelling, using your professionalism and hoping they take in some of it.
Doesn't mean it should be the law that everyone quotes Macbeth in daily life, or uses trig, or speaks civilly.
Part of being a grown up is choosing whether to make good or bad choices, the state shouldn't be making that choice for you. Nor ultimately can teachers, or TAs.
Well fuck off then spacker. That's everyday free speech in a classroom. Every moment. Of every day. Imagine if that was your life.
My daughter started (at her local, standard state) secondary school today and that is not the everyday speech, free or otherwise, that she's been brought up with or that her new school would ever tolerate.
If she said that to a teacher once, let alone every day, I'd fully expect the teacher to issue her a consequence and I'd back that up at home too.
Is it every day language in a challenging behaviour unit? Perhaps, but then that's why the kids are in a challenging behaviour unit, its not supposed to be normal behaviour and isn't acceptable every day already.
Yeah. But it's free speech US style. Why aren't you standing up and applauding it? Because that acceptability is really what you are arguing for.
And all that is before we get to accusations of paedophilia. Thing is Barty you're a lovely, decent guy. But your philosophy relies on everyone else being as nice.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
I do aspire to a US definition of free speech, while wanting civil role models.
How do you teach it? How does a Year 9 Maths Teacher teach trigonometry? How does a Year 8 English Teacher teach Macbeth? By modelling, using your professionalism and hoping they take in some of it.
Doesn't mean it should be the law that everyone quotes Macbeth in daily life, or uses trig, or speaks civilly.
Part of being a grown up is choosing whether to make good or bad choices, the state shouldn't be making that choice for you. Nor ultimately can teachers, or TAs.
Well fuck off then spacker. That's everyday free speech in a classroom. Every moment. Of every day. Imagine if that was your life.
My daughter started (at her local, standard state) secondary school today and that is not the everyday speech, free or otherwise, that she's been brought up with or that her new school would ever tolerate.
If she said that to a teacher once, let alone every day, I'd fully expect the teacher to issue her a consequence and I'd back that up at home too.
Is it every day language in a challenging behaviour unit? Perhaps, but then that's why the kids are in a challenging behaviour unit, its not supposed to be normal behaviour and isn't acceptable every day already.
Yeah. But it's free speech US style. Why aren't you standing up and applauding it? Because that acceptability is really what you are arguing for.
US style free speech is that its legal to say offensive stuff, but organisations can deem it unacceptable privately. That's entirely reasonable.
As I said, if my daughter said that I'd be OK with her school issuing her a consequence in line with their behaviour policy. Whether that be a detention or suspension or whatever.
What I would not be OK with is the Police being called to take her away as no law would or should have been broken.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Without being funny, you are in academia, its a very different world. I spent quite a number of years in academia, and basically never truly applied for a position, certainly not in the way a traditional job goes down and certainly not how modern corporate employment is (we are copying the Americans as usual). It was all networking, your supervisor knows x or y has money and looking for somebody with this interest, you write to them, there is often mutual understanding of the research, the interview is chatting of your research interests and their problem, perhaps you give a presentation about your previous works. Its quite different to the way modern corporate employment has gone, particularly with LLMs.
This will hit academe soon. Universities are completely doomed. People won't take on £50k debt when there is no job at the end
There will be no job at 18 either though, if your more vivid extrapolations come to pass. Essentially the end of employment.
It is utter Luddite bullshit.
AI will do what technologies have always done, automate shit that we no longer need to do.
So employment will then expand to fill in the gaps, as it always has, including doing some stuff we'd never dream of doing today.
If writing bullshit is your day job, then be afraid, be very afraid.
If you're doing something productive with a human touch? That's different.
This is true, but the transitions are messy. Many of the ex-miners never got other jobs, because they didn't have the skills, experience, training or lived in the wrong place.
Exactly. The agricultural revolution was a huge advance for humankind, but it also meant the clearing of people off the land to fishing villages, and eventually to places like Canada. It's enormously disruptive and not necessarily a good thing for everyone, even if overall we experience economic growth.
The other thing Barty misses is that technological progress often means we don't have to work as much. 9 to 5, Saturday off, holidays and so on. I think AI is as likely to deliver a 3-day working week for the middle class as it is a significant change in the kind of work we do. The balance between work and leisure is shifting for those of us lucky enough to have some capital; productivity gains will be offset by a reduction in hours worked.
There are some big questions about what this means about the shape of the economy. Health, culture, sport will likely grow as proportions, but I'm just guessing.
So chaos leads to evolution and improvements over time. Not only have I not missed it, I've said as much repeatedly.
The problem is too many people want staid stability over disruptive improvements.
Your problem is you are too quick to dismiss people's well-founded concerns. But you never really give us a sense you care tbh - I guess Gaza is something you might call a "disruptive improvement" if ends up a big theme park.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
I'd like a gap between "not a role model" and "illegal"... Quite a big gap as it happens.
Indeed. Too many cases that come to attention are cases of people being arseholes, if the law is written broadly enough to capture that then it is too broad I would say. It's hard to reverse course on rights lost, if there is a balance to be struck between complete freedom and some kind of restrictions as a matter of practicalality when it comes to dangerous incitement, better to err on the side of free expression, and at present I think the balance is still too much towards restriction. That might not be the intent, but I'd rather the law did not assist people who would want to restrict more broadly.
‘I’ve applied for more than 5,000 jobs – it’s brutal out there’
When lay-offs hit my role as a senior copywriter at Virgin Media O2 in August 2023, I knew the job hunt wouldn’t be easy. But two years, a drained bank account and a psychiatric unit later, I never imagined it would be this brutal.
5000 jobs in two years is seven a day. He really needs to think about tailoring his applications.
I often think this when I see stories like this. I’ve been lucky - I’m in a job I love and have been able to progress here too. But I think I’ve genuinely only applied for about 10 jobs in my life, plus about six letters asking about post doc positions. And each application was crafted to match the job specs, and all the rest. Those who are applying for 5000 jobs are not really applying for 5000 jobs. A better focus would help.
Without being funny, you are in academia, its a very different world. I spent quite a number of years in academia, and basically never truly applied for a position, certainly not in the way a traditional job goes down and certainly not how modern corporate employment is (we are copying the Americans as usual). It was all networking, your supervisor knows x or y has money and looking for somebody with this interest, you write to them, there is often mutual understanding of the research, the interview is chatting of your research interests and their problem, perhaps you give a presentation about your previous works. Its quite different to the way modern corporate employment has gone, particularly with LLMs.
This will hit academe soon. Universities are completely doomed. People won't take on £50k debt when there is no job at the end
There will be no job at 18 either though, if your more vivid extrapolations come to pass. Essentially the end of employment.
It is utter Luddite bullshit.
AI will do what technologies have always done, automate shit that we no longer need to do.
So employment will then expand to fill in the gaps, as it always has, including doing some stuff we'd never dream of doing today.
If writing bullshit is your day job, then be afraid, be very afraid.
If you're doing something productive with a human touch? That's different.
This is true, but the transitions are messy. Many of the ex-miners never got other jobs, because they didn't have the skills, experience, training or lived in the wrong place.
Exactly. The agricultural revolution was a huge advance for humankind, but it also meant the clearing of people off the land to fishing villages, and eventually to places like Canada. It's enormously disruptive and not necessarily a good thing for everyone, even if overall we experience economic growth.
The other thing Barty misses is that technological progress often means we don't have to work as much. 9 to 5, Saturday off, holidays and so on. I think AI is as likely to deliver a 3-day working week for the middle class as it is a significant change in the kind of work we do. The balance between work and leisure is shifting for those of us lucky enough to have some capital; productivity gains will be offset by a reduction in hours worked.
There are some big questions about what this means about the shape of the economy. Health, culture, sport will likely grow as proportions, but I'm just guessing.
So chaos leads to evolution and improvements over time. Not only have I not missed it, I've said as much repeatedly.
The problem is too many people want staid stability over disruptive improvements.
Your problem is you are too quick to dismiss people's well-founded concerns. But you never really give us a sense you care tbh - I guess Gaza is something you might call a "disruptive improvement" if ends up a big theme park.
You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.
People always have concerns. If you stop for every well founded concern you'd never get anything done.
The government is saying that the Linenah arrest is a "police matter".
But don't we have Police and Crime Commissioners?
Aren't they supposed to be the way that voters can exert some control over policing matters?
Any word from the PCC?
It's the Met, so not PCC in control. It is the Home Secretary, though neither she nor PCCs should interfere in operational decisions.
So what do PCCs do?
I never agreed with the idea in the first place - more Cameron/Steve Hilton bollocks - but i did at least think it meant there was supposed to be some link between the voters and putting pressure on police over policing policy and actions.
They were a bloody dumb idea in the first place. Even combining the election days with local elections often sees them get lower turnout, albeit it from the woeful amounts from the first set in 2012.
The idea that people judge them locally was classic politician thinking which is unrealistic to boot. Sure, some indies have managed from time to time, but given the broadness of areas for the most part PCCs are judged on party label even more than an MP would be, regardless of performance, so the principal idea behind them is bollocks.
Mayors will be similar now they are being pushed out to cover all areas, including ones which have no real cohesive identity, but politicians love creating new roles for people to be elected to, even though the main purpose of the new mayoralties appears to make it easier for Whitehall to dictate to a couple dozen mayors and more reason to ignore hundreds of council leaders.
The government is saying that the Linenah arrest is a "police matter".
But don't we have Police and Crime Commissioners?
Aren't they supposed to be the way that voters can exert some control over policing matters?
Any word from the PCC?
It's the Met, so not PCC in control. It is the Home Secretary, though neither she nor PCCs should interfere in operational decisions.
So what do PCCs do?
I never agreed with the idea in the first place - more Cameron/Steve Hilton bollocks - but i did at least think it meant there was supposed to be some link between the voters and putting pressure on police over policing policy and actions.
They were a bloody dumb idea in the first place. Even combining the election days with local elections often sees them get lower turnout, albeit it from the woeful amounts from the first set in 2012.
The idea that people judge them locally was classic politician thinking which is unrealistic to boot. Sure, some indies have managed from time to time, but given the broadness of areas for the most part PCCs are judged on party label even more than an MP would be, regardless of performance, so the principal idea behind them is bollocks.
Mayors will be similar now they are being pushed out to cover all areas, including ones which have no real cohesive identity, but politicians love creating new roles for people to be elected to, even though the main purpose of the new mayoralties appears to make it easier for Whitehall to dictate to a couple dozen mayors and more reason to ignore hundreds of council leaders.
We should just abolish local elections, local council leaders and devolve powers down to individuals to make their own free choices.
The government is saying that the Linenah arrest is a "police matter".
But don't we have Police and Crime Commissioners?
Aren't they supposed to be the way that voters can exert some control over policing matters?
Any word from the PCC?
It's the Met, so not PCC in control. It is the Home Secretary, though neither she nor PCCs should interfere in operational decisions.
So what do PCCs do?
I never agreed with the idea in the first place - more Cameron/Steve Hilton bollocks - but i did at least think it meant there was supposed to be some link between the voters and putting pressure on police over policing policy and actions.
They were a bloody dumb idea in the first place. Even combining the election days with local elections often sees them get lower turnout, albeit it from the woeful amounts from the first set in 2012.
The idea that people judge them locally was classic politician thinking which is unrealistic to boot. Sure, some indies have managed from time to time, but given the broadness of areas for the most part PCCs are judged on party label even more than an MP would be, regardless of performance, so the principal idea behind them is bollocks.
Mayors will be similar now they are being pushed out to cover all areas, including ones which have no real cohesive identity, but politicians love creating new roles for people to be elected to, even though the main purpose of the new mayoralties appears to make it easier for Whitehall to dictate to a couple dozen mayors and more reason to ignore hundreds of council leaders.
We should just abolish local elections, local council leaders and devolve powers down to individuals to make their own free choices.
The government is saying that the Linenah arrest is a "police matter".
But don't we have Police and Crime Commissioners?
Aren't they supposed to be the way that voters can exert some control over policing matters?
Any word from the PCC?
It's the Met, so not PCC in control. It is the Home Secretary, though neither she nor PCCs should interfere in operational decisions.
So what do PCCs do?
I never agreed with the idea in the first place - more Cameron/Steve Hilton bollocks - but i did at least think it meant there was supposed to be some link between the voters and putting pressure on police over policing policy and actions.
They were a bloody dumb idea in the first place. Even combining the election days with local elections often sees them get lower turnout, albeit it from the woeful amounts from the first set in 2012.
The idea that people judge them locally was classic politician thinking which is unrealistic to boot. Sure, some indies have managed from time to time, but given the broadness of areas for the most part PCCs are judged on party label even more than an MP would be, regardless of performance, so the principal idea behind them is bollocks.
Mayors will be similar now they are being pushed out to cover all areas, including ones which have no real cohesive identity, but politicians love creating new roles for people to be elected to, even though the main purpose of the new mayoralties appears to make it easier for Whitehall to dictate to a couple dozen mayors and more reason to ignore hundreds of council leaders.
We should just abolish local elections, local council leaders and devolve powers down to individuals to make their own free choices.
But too many politicians enjoy the boondongle.
Who empties your bin?
Pay for someone to empty it, just as you already have to do with garden waste.
Would cost a hell of a lot less than Council Tax and plenty of organisations already exist with the capability to do that.
The government is saying that the Linenah arrest is a "police matter".
But don't we have Police and Crime Commissioners?
Aren't they supposed to be the way that voters can exert some control over policing matters?
Any word from the PCC?
It's the Met, so not PCC in control. It is the Home Secretary, though neither she nor PCCs should interfere in operational decisions.
So what do PCCs do?
I never agreed with the idea in the first place - more Cameron/Steve Hilton bollocks - but i did at least think it meant there was supposed to be some link between the voters and putting pressure on police over policing policy and actions.
They were a bloody dumb idea in the first place. Even combining the election days with local elections often sees them get lower turnout, albeit it from the woeful amounts from the first set in 2012.
The idea that people judge them locally was classic politician thinking which is unrealistic to boot. Sure, some indies have managed from time to time, but given the broadness of areas for the most part PCCs are judged on party label even more than an MP would be, regardless of performance, so the principal idea behind them is bollocks.
Mayors will be similar now they are being pushed out to cover all areas, including ones which have no real cohesive identity, but politicians love creating new roles for people to be elected to, even though the main purpose of the new mayoralties appears to make it easier for Whitehall to dictate to a couple dozen mayors and more reason to ignore hundreds of council leaders.
We should just abolish local elections, local council leaders and devolve powers down to individuals to make their own free choices.
But too many politicians enjoy the boondongle.
Who empties your bin?
Pay for someone to empty it, just as you already have to do with garden waste.
Would cost a hell of a lot less than Council Tax and plenty of organisations already exist with the capability to do that.
Some of us have a council supplied green bin for garden waste.
Though stupidly they stop it in the winter, just when you are doing the tidying up jobs.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
Acceptable behaviour and legal behaviour are very different things.
One can cheat on one's spouse without fear of prosecution. Doesn't mean you should do it.
I may be in a minority on here, but I don't favour advocating violence. Nor think those who do are martyrs
Linehan is an extremist. If he stopped at ‘make a fuss, call the cops’ then it would be better. But of course he has strong views and is subject to lots of hate back at him.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
That wasn't a purely anti-Lineham comment. It includes the Labour councillor Jones, trans activists and Jo Brand's chuck acid on Farage "joke". I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does. I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence. Was all a bit over the top mind. I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone. How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
I do aspire to a US definition of free speech, while wanting civil role models.
How do you teach it? How does a Year 9 Maths Teacher teach trigonometry? How does a Year 8 English Teacher teach Macbeth? By modelling, using your professionalism and hoping they take in some of it.
Doesn't mean it should be the law that everyone quotes Macbeth in daily life, or uses trig, or speaks civilly.
Part of being a grown up is choosing whether to make good or bad choices, the state shouldn't be making that choice for you. Nor ultimately can teachers, or TAs.
Well fuck off then spacker. That's everyday free speech in a classroom. Every moment. Of every day. Imagine if that was your life.
My daughter started (at her local, standard state) secondary school today and that is not the everyday speech, free or otherwise, that she's been brought up with or that her new school would ever tolerate.
If she said that to a teacher once, let alone every day, I'd fully expect the teacher to issue her a consequence and I'd back that up at home too.
Is it every day language in a challenging behaviour unit? Perhaps, but then that's why the kids are in a challenging behaviour unit, its not supposed to be normal behaviour and isn't acceptable every day already.
Yeah. But it's free speech US style. Why aren't you standing up and applauding it? Because that acceptability is really what you are arguing for.
No, it isn’t “free speech US style”
Having actually been to America, you’d probably find harsher punishment in many ordinary schools for such language. Special schools - I don’t know.
The difference between here and there on “free speach” is just that it’s much harder to arrest people for just saying stuff. And it’s much harder to fine them millions for saying stuff. Neither of which is much use in a school environment.
Sir Keir Starmer will drive through money-saving welfare reforms following his No 10 reset, The Telegraph understands.
The Prime Minister remains determined to overhaul the disability benefits payments system to get more people stuck on long-term sickness back into work, despite opposition from Labour MPs.
It is understood that reviving plans to reform welfare will be a key focus of the Prime Minister’s “powerful” new Downing Street team.
Government to ban sale of energy drinks with more than 150mg of caffeine, citing concerns over obesity and lack of concentration
Under-16s in England will be banned from buying energy drinks such as Red Bull and Monster because they fuel obesity, cause sleep problems and leave them unable to concentrate.
Health experts, teaching unions and dentists welcomed the ban and said it would boost children and young people’s health. It fulfils a pledge Labour included in its manifesto for last year’s general election.
More than 7,300 Afghans to be resettled in UK after MoD data leak, says National Audit Office
The watchdog said the government was unable to calculate the exact cost of its response. The £850m estimate did not include legal costs or compensation claims, and doubts were raised by the NAO about the “completeness and accuracy” of the base figure.
Government to ban sale of energy drinks with more than 150mg of caffeine, citing concerns over obesity and lack of concentration
Under-16s in England will be banned from buying energy drinks such as Red Bull and Monster because they fuel obesity, cause sleep problems and leave them unable to concentrate.
Health experts, teaching unions and dentists welcomed the ban and said it would boost children and young people’s health. It fulfils a pledge Labour included in its manifesto for last year’s general election.
Comments
It's generous occupational pensions (both public and private).
They are becoming rarer and rarer.
I certainly wouldn't be voting for a party led by Rayner, but I can appreciate that she's fought her way to the top of politics, and that she has more chance of selling a message, a vision, and reaching out and speaking to people, in ways that Starmer just can't. They could do worse than her, IMHO. Another grey suit who believes in precious little would be the worst of all worlds for them.
Maybe the robot UAVs will fly around zapping AI identified weeds with lasers.
The tech bro vision is vast rewards for them, serfdom for us. They need to ask AI what the key ingredient of revolution is.
Greatest @ 3/1
(There is a bit of a catch- even trickle down economics requires a flow of money down the system for the mass of us to afford to live well enough. The insistence of the new plutocrats that they need to hoard all their money because that's how they keep score in their lives rather messes that up. Andrew Carnegie got that one right.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrRF9IFQqgo
If so the combination of careers disappearing and unaffordable housing must be life ruining.
I'm possibly unusual, though, in liking the Minority Report concept of arresting murderers before they've done it rather than after. But that's a way off, I'd have thought.
The NI numbers are a joke in terms of data quality.
Aldi isn't far behind.
I'm delighted he's happy.
But it isn't really aspirational.
Be difficult to make the rent on that.
The AI apps are getting better but are still way slower for easy species and not good enough for hard ones (where you might need a hand lens). I think it will need field DNA sampling to do the job properly via automation, but someone will still have to wade through the brambles.
For weed zapping in a field, though, that technology already exists, as AI can easily tell what is a crop plant and what is not.
https://carbonrobotics.com/laserweeder
They don't even bother tracking vehicles with obscured, fake number plates because "they can't trace the registered owner" though that might be changing.
https://x.com/WasAcop_/status/1962964098259271718?t=83bISY3LFh_44VvOUIAvtA&s=19
Bit like Gattaca.
Still, we'll all be rooting for you when the Reform Government arrest you for pre-crime. Maybe we'll bake a cake with a file in it.
Nor think those who do are martyrs
An oldie who wants to keep active can do the gardens of older oldies for cash in hand.
Arresting Linehan for his rude posting when millions of other far worse posts exist is a bit like my three points.
We really need to get back to the idea that there is no right not to be offended.
I’m not defending him as a martyr, I’m criticising the state we have got into where his X posts lead to being arrested by five armed police officers as he lands in the U.K. Even if what he has done is worthy of arrest, it could be done with so much less show. But of course the show is part of it.
If anyone is in despair at the jobs market, remember they can instantly gain employment as a supply Teaching Assistant in a SEN school by merely brandishing an Enhanced DBS.
They are desperate, and you couldn't be any worse.
If you don't mind being sworn at, assaulted, urinated on or reported as a paedophile for £95 a day.
Or a "proper job" as some would have it.
But it changed.
Things happen, the world moves on etc.
Yet it seems if you ring them and say someone is shoplifting they say someone might come around and give a crime number next week.
I never agreed with the idea in the first place - more Cameron/Steve Hilton bollocks - but i did at least think it meant there was supposed to be some link between the voters and putting pressure on police over policing policy and actions.
*** 1970s BBC to be clear.*
** Or 1990s.*
* 100% not now that they have 100% cleared the decks.
I don't aspire to a USA definition of "free speech". No other nation does.
I don't want that kind of language normalised. Nor "it's just a joke" to be a defence.
Was all a bit over the top mind.
I don't want Lucy Connolly to become a role model for anyone.
How am I supposed to teach Year 7 civil discourse if it does?
Though I did get stopped once by a cop whose ANPR flagged my car as uninsured. To which I was very confused, which he didn't seem to buy for a second until I showed him my insurance documents, at which point the demeanor improved markably. Turned out that there was a typo on the reg plate for my insurance, which satisfied the cop and I had to call the insurance company the following week to update their records.
By that point I'd been driving for seven months so certainly could have been stopped sooner.
The UK may not be alone in the rising bond yield environment, but its way too easy a target for what some might call speculators or others may call it the people who lend the UK government the money.
£15 cash in hand is easier to make the rent with (on top of benefits) than £15 salaried minus income tax minus National Insurance minus taper etc
We need to ensure legitimate work pays by letting people keep more of what they work for.
Fiona Hill: "Russia allows mail-in voting"
And live happily ever after. As is, of course, right and proper.
Unfortunately. Reality intervened.
Therefore David Cameron lost interest.
And especially since the reason for the rise in the effective rate is people *not* buying.
How do you teach it? How does a Year 9 Maths Teacher teach trigonometry? How does a Year 8 English Teacher teach Macbeth? By modelling, using your professionalism and hoping they take in some of it.
Doesn't mean it should be the law that everyone quotes Macbeth in daily life, or uses trig, or speaks civilly.
Part of being a grown up is choosing whether to make good or bad choices, the state shouldn't be making that choice for you. Nor ultimately can teachers, or TAs.
The other thing Barty misses is that technological progress often means we don't have to work as much. 9 to 5, Saturday off, holidays and so on. I think AI is as likely to deliver a 3-day working week for the middle class as it is a significant change in the kind of work we do. The balance between work and leisure is shifting for those of us lucky enough to have some capital; productivity gains will be offset by a reduction in hours worked.
There are some big questions about what this means about the shape of the economy. Health, culture, sport will likely grow as proportions, but I'm just guessing.
That's everyday free speech in a classroom.
Every moment. Of every day.
Every single time you worked up the courage to vocalise your feelings.
Imagine if that was your life.
If she said that to a teacher once, let alone every day, I'd fully expect the teacher to issue her a consequence and I'd back that up at home too.
Is it every day language in a challenging behaviour unit? Perhaps, but then that's why the kids are in a challenging behaviour unit, its not supposed to be normal behaviour and isn't acceptable every day already.
FFS.
They announce their decision in next couple of weeks.
b) Wait for French politics to implode this month
The problem is too many people want staid stability over disruptive improvements.
But it's free speech US style.
Why aren't you standing up and applauding it?
Because that acceptability is really what you are arguing for.
Thing is Barty you're a lovely, decent guy. But your philosophy relies on everyone else being as nice.
As I said, if my daughter said that I'd be OK with her school issuing her a consequence in line with their behaviour policy. Whether that be a detention or suspension or whatever.
What I would not be OK with is the Police being called to take her away as no law would or should have been broken.
Anyway, the circus continues, possibly on borrowed time, but sane is not a word I'd use to describe it.
People always have concerns. If you stop for every well founded concern you'd never get anything done.
Oh wait, that's just where we are.
And that creates its own well founded concerns.
The idea that people judge them locally was classic politician thinking which is unrealistic to boot. Sure, some indies have managed from time to time, but given the broadness of areas for the most part PCCs are judged on party label even more than an MP would be, regardless of performance, so the principal idea behind them is bollocks.
Mayors will be similar now they are being pushed out to cover all areas, including ones which have no real cohesive identity, but politicians love creating new roles for people to be elected to, even though the main purpose of the new mayoralties appears to make it easier for Whitehall to dictate to a couple dozen mayors and more reason to ignore hundreds of council leaders.
But too many politicians enjoy the boondongle.
Would cost a hell of a lot less than Council Tax and plenty of organisations already exist with the capability to do that.
Though stupidly they stop it in the winter, just when you are doing the tidying up jobs.
One can cheat on one's spouse without fear of prosecution. Doesn't mean you should do it.
"Russia allows mail-in voting for Vladimir Putin"
Having actually been to America, you’d probably find harsher punishment in many ordinary schools for such language. Special schools - I don’t know.
The difference between here and there on “free speach” is just that it’s much harder to arrest people for just saying stuff. And it’s much harder to fine them millions for saying stuff. Neither of which is much use in a school environment.
Sir Keir Starmer will drive through money-saving welfare reforms following his No 10 reset, The Telegraph understands.
The Prime Minister remains determined to overhaul the disability benefits payments system to get more people stuck on long-term sickness back into work, despite opposition from Labour MPs.
It is understood that reviving plans to reform welfare will be a key focus of the Prime Minister’s “powerful” new Downing Street team.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/09/02/starmer-welfare-cuts-after-reset/
Under-16s in England will be banned from buying energy drinks such as Red Bull and Monster because they fuel obesity, cause sleep problems and leave them unable to concentrate.
Health experts, teaching unions and dentists welcomed the ban and said it would boost children and young people’s health. It fulfils a pledge Labour included in its manifesto for last year’s general election.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/sep/02/children-energy-drinks-government-obesity-health
The watchdog said the government was unable to calculate the exact cost of its response. The £850m estimate did not include legal costs or compensation claims, and doubts were raised by the NAO about the “completeness and accuracy” of the base figure.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/sep/03/afghans-resettled-uk-mod-data-leak-report-national-audit-office
https://www.mashed.com/225664/the-untold-truth-of-four-loko/
Though I believe they dropped the caffeine after US government pressure.
Our own homegrown Buckfast Tonic Wine still mixes alcohol with caffeine. Mind you, so does whisky and coke.