Posts by Elongated Muskrat 2812 publicly visible posts • joined 14 Nov 2022
There are several in operation or currently being built in the city I live in. Prior to the pandemic, we had to endure long diversions for the best part of a year while they put the pipes under the roads round where I live.
The main blocker to installing these is the fact that people, who would, on the whole, like the free hot water, don't tend to live in close proximity to industrial sources of heat. I believe the one that was installed near me gets its heat from the incinerators at the local hospital, and is used to heat several of the surrounding buildings.
The rate of heat loss is proportional to the temperature difference. That's Newton's Law of Cooling which is a direct consequence of the Second Law of Thermodynamics (heat flows from hot to cold). A very small additional input has an even smaller effect on temperature. I'm assuming you know the difference between heat and temperature here, but it's probably a big assumption, since your grasp of thermodynamics appears to be slight.
So, they use CO2 tanks to supplement CO2 levels in greenhouses, a closed system with a high concentration of actively growing plants in proportion to the volume of the gases in there. Meanwhile, in our biosphere, plants grow at (some of) the surface of a column of air 100 miles tall. Do you see how these two things are not comparable in scale?
I don't know where you're getting your "science" from; perhaps Temu? You should send it back for a full refund, because it's faulty as hell.
I think you might need to go back to thermodynamics school, laddo. Atmospheric heating from the sun greatly outweighs any of these effects, and the effect of carbon dioxide in selectively absorbing re-emitted solar radiation and thereby warming the atmosphere has been known and properly understood for almost two centuries. Far more warming of the oceans occurs from this effect than could ever be caused by waste heat outflow from power generation, which is very literally a drop in the ocean. Ditto with the effect of plants absorbing CO2 during the day; you do know that this has zero measurable effect on the diurnal levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and no such effect has ever been observed or measured, right? That's on the same level of nonsense as flerfism.
As for alternatives to heat engines for converting mechanical power into electrical energy, I hear Maxwell's demon is waiting just for you with his tiny little pitchfork. I'm sure all the nuclear physicists are eager to hear of your alternatives to using heat to drive a turbine; perhaps a series of tiny baseball gloves on a wheel to catch the fast neutrons, attached to a second little wheel with teeny-tiny boots on it to kick the electrons along a wire?
"AI" is a tool, the mistake people make is thinking that the "I" stands for "intelligence" and it somehow has some sort of theory of mind. It doesn't, it's just a big old statistical model that has grown in complexity enough to look like magic. Statistical models are great at some things, but what they can't do is "think", which is why they can't tell you how many "R"s there are in the word "strawberry", but they can find low-energy solutions to protein folding, and that sort of thing.
It's a bit like if you decided to call a hammer a screwdriver. It would still be really good for banging nails in with, but not so great at fitting the case screws to the back of your gaming PC. Statistical models are great at modelling things ins a statistical kind of way, but labelling them as "AI" doesn't make them intelligent. It merely exposes the people who call them that as bullshitters. Some people are better at spotting bullshit than others, and to those of use who have a finely attuned sense of it, our bullshitometers are red-lining at the level they would at a marketing convention.
I think you might need to go back to thermodynamics school, laddo. Atmospheric heating from the sun greatly outweighs any of these effects, and the effect of carbon dioxide in selectively absorbing re-emitted solar radiation and thereby warming the atmosphere has been known and properly understood for almost two centuries. Far more warming of the oceans occurs from this effect than could ever be caused by waste heat outflow from power generation, which is very literally a drop in the ocean. Ditto with the effect of plants absorbing CO2 during the day; you do know that this has zero measurable effect on the diurnal levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and no such effect has ever been observed or measured, right? That's on the same level of nonsense as flerfism.
As for alternatives to heat engines for converting mechanical power into electrical energy, I hear Maxwell's demon is waiting just for you with his tiny little pitchfork. I'm sure all the nuclear physicists are eager to hear of your alternatives to using heat to drive a turbine; perhaps a series of tiny baseball gloves on a wheel to catch the fast neutrons, attached to a second little wheel with teeny-tiny boots on it to kick the electrons along a wire?
"Based on someone else's proprietary product" is the new "someone else's computer". The future is building things on open architectures, so you can take that thing that currently runs on Azure and pop it onto a set of machines in your own data centre, running Linux or a similarly non-proprietary OS, if your "thing" even cares what OS it's running on, inside its container.
The problems come when the big players borg the open source products and projects that just work, like GitHub, and slowly enshittify them.
The longer outage will probably come as the result of infiltration by a hacking group, or more likely nation-state actor, who will probably have either found a zero-day exploit, or planted a deliberate exploit into custom hardware. It's probably already there, waiting. According to Bruce Schneier, "AI" is already ahead of the game in finding new exploits.
It's US policing that assumes you are guilty; the UK (nominally) has "policing by consent," which technically means you don't have to cooperate with the police unless arrested. In the US, you have to cooperate with whatever the police say, or they'll (possibly) shoot you. Especially if you're black.
Whilst there is obviously an element of chancing your arm (if you are actually guilty), if a jury finds a perron not guilty, that means that there wasn't evidence that proved them guilty.
Clearly, if you are guilty of a crime, and there is insufficient evidence to send you down for it, you *can* plead not guilty and go to trial. There's a lot of people doing this, as indicated by the huge backlog of trials. You might be found not guilty and get off scot-free, and in the end, only you will know whether you did it or not (and have to live with that knowledge). However, my point was that if you are guilty, and clearly guilty, and there is overwhelming evidence to show that, as is the case in many, many trials, then you'd be a fool to plead not guilty, it's in your interests to plead guilty, and take it on the chin, because it will affect sentencing if you don't show remorse.
As for trial by your peers, you really are rolling the dice on that one. As someone who has done jury service, I can tell you that those twelve jurors are going to be a real mixed bag. Obviously I can't discuss what went on in the jury room, as it's still sub judice, and will remain so, but you are going to have a microcosm of society in there, and twelve is a small enough sample to have a non-zero risk of picking a majority of really dumb people.
My understanding is that you should not voluntarily allow yourself to be interviewed by the police, if innocent. Obviously, if you are guilty, you should 'fess up - it will go better for you in court, when it comes to sentencing. If you are arrested, you should do nothing more than confirm your identity, and give "no comment" answers to any further questions. Answering some, but not others, can be seen as an admission of guilt, or that you have something to hide, even if that thing you want to hide is perfectly innocent, and nothing to do with the charges being brought.
The job of the police is to gather evidence, to provide enough indication that a suspect may be guilty of a crime, so that they can then get a charging decision from the CPS. They don't actually care if the person is guilty or not, although it reflects well on them to get the right person, their job is to get enough evidence to get a suspect to court. Once a case is in court, the only involvement the police have is as witnesses if a case goes to trial because the person didn't plead guilty.
The thing is, if you're being interviewed, even voluntarily and not under caution, you literally don't know what other evidence the police might have gathered, and how that fits, by pure coincidence, to things you might, in all innocence, say. If they put 2 and 2 together and get 5, and decide that they might get a charging decision from the CPS, they'll go ahead and arrest you whether you're guilty or not. It's literally their job to do so.
The police are supposed to be able to trace all evidence back to where it came from, and control everything that has happened to it in the interim.
In this case, it seems that they have mistaken "BT says that" for "it is a fact that", and treated that piece of information as having a proper chain of custody back to a demonstrable fact.
Now, this is no reflection on BT (although in this case they were at fault), that this should be done. The police should have done due diligence and established that what BT were telling them about the assignment of IP addresses was in fact true, by verifying it.
Accidents, mistakes, and human error do occur, and rather than finger-pointing, it is the job of the police to eliminate these from their enquiries. The seriousness of the alleged crime should not change whether proper processes should be followed, and I'd suggest that the investigating officers were at fault in this case, in their over-eagerness to "catch a nonce," they took short-cuts and not only caused material harm to innocent people, but allowed the actual offender to continue causing harm to children. I would hope that the IOPC are on this case, and that investigating officers have all been made aware that this sort of information from ISPs is not 100% reliable, and should not be solely relied upon to identify addresses or devices. I won't be holding my breath, though.
John Edwards, UK Information Commissioner, said: "Capita failed in its duty to protect the data entrusted to it by millions of people. The scale of this breach and its impact could have been prevented had sufficient security measures been in place.
I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of these people didn't willingly entrust their data to Crapita at all, and that this was done so either without their explicit knowledge, or in the small print that nobody reads of their agreement with whoever it was they actually "entrusted" their data to. I also strongly suspect there was no real choice given to people about whether they explicitly gave that trust or not, if these are things like pension schemes, where your option is "pay in, or don't".
Marketing (and advertising) isn't inherently illogical though. The material it produces is usually grade-A bullshit, but the way it works is a very finely tuned machine. It plays on people's psychological weaknesses and vulnerabilities to trick people into thinking things that aren't true, but without explicitly doing so. For example, when they dress up an actress like a dentist and get them to say "I recommend X toothpaste". They're not, technically, doing anything wrong, they're not even pretending that the actress dressed up like a dentist is anything other than an actress in a "dentist's uniform" (if such a thing even existed), on a set that looks like a dental surgery, and they're certainly not explicitly claiming it. They're just letting the subconscious cues lead your brain into thinking, "this is the toothpaste dentists use, I'll buy that one rather than the other one that does exactly the same thing but costs 20% as much".
So it's not illogical at all, it's very logical, and deliberate psychological manipulation.
But yes, a right stitch-up. Had the "non-binding referendum" been 48/52 the other way, you bet your arse there would've been a second referendum.
Technically, that one was the second one (the first one was in 1975), so another one would have been a third one.
Points of note are:
- it was explicitly advisory in the enabling bill
- if it had not been explicitly advisory, it would have required a 2/3 super-majority for any constitutional change, not a simple majority of votes cast.
- it explicitly excluded a group of people who would have voted strongly against leaving the EU, namely British citizens living overseas in the EU.
They ignored the one for a second vote on brexit, despite the obvious irregularities with the advisory referendum, as well as the million people protesting outside parliament, so I wouldn't hold your breath. That one had over 6 million signatures at the point where they "archived" it. Whether you agree with brexit or not (and I know there are people here who still think it was a brilliant idea despite the evidence), this demonstrates exactly how easy it is for government to completely ignore the strongly-held opinions of huge swathes of the population when it suits their purposes.
The one linked above is a little more than 230K off having the record, as at the time of me writing this, it's over 3 million off the number of signatures on the brexit one. Not even half way...
is why the government's age verification law is bad. You provide ID to prove you are over 18, and then, what happens to it? It only takes one weak link in the "supply chain" - one ID verification service, one vendor, one website, and all that juicy PID is stolen.
Quite apart from a requirement to provide your identity to use a website, which has clear potential for tracking and monitoring.
What is it about the precautionary principle that scares you? You see, using emotive language like that really doesn't add anything useful to the discussion.
Again, though, you are missing the point, so I'll state it as simply as I can. I'm not suggesting satellites pose a known threat (injection of chlorine radicals into the upper atmosphere), I'm saying we can't rule out that they pose an unknown threat. The chlorine radicals thing is an example of the sort of processes that occur, and of how things we thought were safe and chemically inert turn out to pose a specific and unpredicted hazard.
My point, which you have swerved, is that satellites reentering the atmosphere cannot be considered to be the same class of material, either physically, or chemically, as the influx of natural material from space. Anyone who knows anything at all about either chemistry, or orbital mechanics, would be aware of this. It's not just the chemical composition which is wildly different, but also the conditions under which it enters the atmosphere, how and where it burns up, and the physical processes involved.
Material entering the Earth's atmosphere from deep space does so under a wide variety of physical parameters, whilst satellites are de-orbited under a very narrow range of such parameters; velocity being the most obvious one, but the physical characteristics of the object are also wildly different; space rocks tend to be one big solid mass, with few if any voids within, whilst satellites tend to be comprised of discrete parts, including ones that will contain large voids, such as empty or near-empty fuel tanks. They will break apart in different ways, and release different chemicals into different parts of the atmosphere at different temperatures, in different physical environmental conditions. They literally have almost nothing in common whatsoever, so it is not valid to say "satellites are fine, because meteorites". You might as well claim that you won't get cancer from smoking because I roasted a chicken last Sunday, and it didn't give the oven cancer. I mean, cigarettes and chickens are both organic materials, and both processes involve heating them, right?
I think that there may be a legitimate concern about the effects of injecting large amounts of material into the upper atmosphere, that wouldn't happen naturally, and that this probably deserves study. What I'm not doing, as you characterise it, is "panicking" or being "scared". What I am describing is the scientific method, something which I might hope that you could understand, especially if you are going to go around quoting scientific research (out of context). As for some random comment about radioactive dust; is that what you have been smoking today?
It's copiously clear that you have no actual understanding or knowledge of the subject matter, and are just looking for an argument. I had hoped that you might not slip into your pattern of adversarial bullshit here, but it seems you just can't help yourself.
It's not halogen ions (such as Cl-) that are the problem, it's halogen radicals (Cl.) that are; one of these is a chlorine atom with an additional electron, giving it a full valence shell of electrons, and the other is a single electrically neutral chlorine atom with an incomplete valence shell. Chemically, these are very different things, and the single chlorine atom is actually much more chemically reactive.
Meteorites are not stripped back into a plasma on entry into the atmosphere; apart from the fact that a meteorite is a space rock that has hit the ground, and thus in part survived reentry (you probably meant meteor), whilst plasmas may form on the leading edge of an object re-entering, it's thermodynamically very unlikely that chemically stable components will be split apart into their constituent atoms. I have to confess that I'm not au fait with the exact physical and chemical processes involved in high temperature breakdown of objects entering the atmosphere, but the general principle is that heating will provide energy to break chemical bonds at a rate inversely proportionate to the bond strength. Some compounds will denature at little above room temperature, whilst objects that have been in space for several billion years, subject to cycles of heating and cooling, and being under constant radiation flux, will have had lots of time to become chemically stable. Iron/nickel meteors tend to survive re-entry pretty well, and heating occurs only on the surface. When found shortly after impact, these are usually reported as being very cold, not hot, as their core will have been at only a few degrees above absolute zero, and even though metals are very thermally conductive, the amount of energy gained from re-entry is nowhere near enough to raise the temperature even to above the freezing point of water. It's certainly not enough to turn the whole thing into a thermal plasma. Chondritic (rocky) meteors are much poorer thermal conductors, and are much more likely to break apart from uneven stresses; again, they don't get turned into plasma, if anything they explode.
So, what about the things that do burn up entirely? They are moving very fast, much faster than a de-orbiting satellite which is by definition moving at less than the Earth's escape velocity (11 kilometres per second), these things are typically moving at hundreds of kilometres per second relative to Earth. De-orbiting satellites will also be re-entering the atmosphere at a shallow angle, whereas meteors could be coming in at anything from tangential to the atmosphere to straight down. As a result, they tend to burn up well below the top of the stratosphere. Not only is the chemistry wildly different, but the physical parameters and atmospheric locations don't match. The two things just are not comparable, except for a very narrow range of chemical and physical parameters, e.g. a satellite may contain some ferrous alloys that have a little in common with metallic meteors, and a very small portion of meteors may come in slowly enough and at a low enough angle that they re-enter in a similar way to a de-orbiting satellite. That's maybe 0.001% commonality (and that's probably an overestimate) and tells us nothing at all about the other 99.999% of re-entries.
No, it's the geochemical equivalent of homeopathy.
No it's not. Homeopathy involves diluting things so many times that statistically, there isn't going to be a single atom of the original substance in the little bottle of water, or on the sugar pill. It's grade-A woo.
Half a tonne of burning satellite spread out by atmospheric currents of several hundred square miles, in an area that receives high-energy solar flux is a completely different kettle of fish, and my point, as someone with an actual relevant degree in the field, is that we simply don't know what the effects of all the resultant species, or their lifespan in the atmosphere will be, until we study them. We're taking a chance that we won't find out, later on when it's way too late, that one component of the rocket fuel, or the solar panels, or one of the alloys, or something in the control electronics doesn't turn out to be equally much a problem as CFCs. And no, these aren't the same chemically, physically, or structurally, as natural meteorites and space dust, which have a pretty narrow and well-known chemical composition. As it happens, I've studied in that field as well.
As it happens, I'm not "panicking", I am simply reiterating the precautionary principle, which is that we shouldn't fuck with our environment and just assume it'll all be okay. If you think that is panicking, I invite you to take a nice swim in the River Wye. Make sure you swallow lots of that nice clean, absolutely sewerage-and-farm-run-off-free water.
Estimates have the total mass of CFCs released into the atmosphere at around 10 million tonnes. Due to the way the atmosphere mixes in layers, and the fact that these are heavier-than-air molecules, very little of this has actually made its way into the stratosphere, where the ozone layer is. Despite this, enough has made it up there to cause complete depletion of ozone over the poles, because its action is catalytic (via their own photodegradation under ultraviolet light, and release of chlorine radicals, if you must know). This is a very good example of how even tiny amounts of certain chemicals released into the upper atmosphere can have unintended effects.
The environment at the "top" of the atmosphere (and I use the term advisedly, because the Earth's atmosphere technically extends all the way to the Earth's magnetopause) is very different to the environment down here. People tend to think that air gets colder as you approach space, but this only holds true to the top of the troposphere, at which point temperature begins to climb again. At the top of the stratosphere, which is the area of the Earth's atmosphere we are talking about, it's not exactly warm, but not very cold either, and the air pressure is much lower than at sea level (about 1/1000th). Electromagnetic radiation flux from the sun contains much more short-wavelength radiation, much of which gets scattered or filtered out by the atmosphere below before reaching us. A high flux of ultraviolet radiation tends to break down a lot of things, and in a rarefied atmosphere, high energy breakdown products of chemicals last a lot longer than they would at sea-level. This is how chlorine radicals (a highly reactive species) are able to last long enough to catalyse the breakdown of ozone, and why dumping anything into the atmosphere at that height that wouldn't normally be there may well be a very bad idea.
The simple fact is that we simply don't know what the effect of adding the sorts of things that satellites are made of into the atmosphere will be, in any amount. Things like the alloys that the bodies of spacecraft are made from, which are predominantly stuff like aluminium and magnesium will probably literally burn up to make alumina and magnesia, which probably won't have any vastly unexpected effects, even at the rate of thousands of tonnes a year. However, other heavy metals, and heavy metal compounds, have the capacity to catalyse all sorts of things; just ask an inorganic chemist, and they'll tell you that most industrial catalysts are based on transition metals of one sort or another.
It's the geochemical equivalent of eating random things on the pavement, but only doing it in tiny amounts, so you'll probably not get ill.
I did comment on this earlier, but for some reason my comments never appeared, to I'll try again...
However, it's hard to see why meteors would be totally devoid of some element or other and satellites rich in them.
This is the point exactly here; meteors are typically remnants of the primordial matter that the solar system formed from. Things hitting us from outside the solar system are vanishingly rare. Their chemical composition is pretty specific; metallic meteorites are typically an iron/nickel mix, and chondritic ones are mostly silicate minerals. Satellites, on the other had, are made from high-strength aerospace alloys, semiconductors, rocket fuel, etc. The chemical composition is wildly different.
The chemical equilibrium of the upper atmosphere is finely balanced by nature, and space rocks (and more commonly, smaller particles we'd consider "space dust") hitting it are part of that balance. Manufactured alloys, semiconductors, and rocket fuel are not.
It's also not just a matter of the chemical elements; the compounds those elements are formed into is important. For instance, every cell in your body will contain plenty of sodium, carbon, and nitrogen. Combine these three elements in a 1:1:1 ratio, and you get a compound that is fatally toxic to you in even tiny amounts. Things burning up in the upper atmosphere are rarely in their elemental form, and "burning up" is also a pretty misleading term; "heated by friction until it evaporates, is torn apart, or burns" is probably closer to what is actually going on.
We literally don't know what pumping lots of manufactured chemicals into the upper atmosphere will do; a great case in point here is that of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) which catalyse the breakdown of atmospheric ozone, interfering with the natural cycle that reduces the amount of UV-A reaching the Earth's surface. Once we found out about this, they were banned. The constituent elements (chlorine, fluorine and carbon) will all be found in space rocks in some combination or other; but not as CFCs in any measurable amount. Similarly, rocket fuel isn't naturally found floating around in space in our solar system, either are aluminium/magnesium alloys, or pretty much any of the components that make up an artificial satellite.
1991-2016 statistics, because the post I was replying to referred to migration figures in the early '90s. It would hardly be contextual if it covered a different range of years, would it?
As far as I can see, there was only one year there, where the difference between immigration and emigration was a low enough number to fit inside a football stadium.
It's also very noteworthy, that these are total migration figures, the vast majority of which is done, "legally" within the system, and says nothing about undocumented migration (the majority of which is modern slavery related), or what portion of the figures correspond to irregular arrivals / asylum claims.
I agree with you about the issue of digital ID. It will do nothing whatsoever to deter "illegal migration".
The underlying issue with the "black economy" of illegal workers is not the same as the one of asylum seekers though.
Since there are no "safe and legal" routes for people to legitimately claim asylum in the UK if they come from many places, people desperate to come here and do so (for whatever reason) are forced to come in small boats, or hidden inside lorries. It's extremely dangerous, and nobody in their right mind would do it if they had any option. Once in the asylum system, such people are left in limbo while their claims are processed (with the huge, politically created, backlog). Whilst this happens, they have to be housed and fed. They get given nothing more than this, and are not entitled to work to support themselves. These are human beings, and all humans have basic needs, which in this case are barely being met. The language being used to describe them as "illegals", and words like "swarm" and "invasion" are exactly the same as those used in 1930s Germany to scapegoat people; dehumanisation allows people to do terrible things.
The black economy, on the other hand, of undocumented people working illegally, is a completely different issue. These aren't people in the asylum system, they are people who have been smuggled into the country, often in conditions of modern slavery. They enjoy no rights, no social security, no access to healthcare or education, nada, as far as the state is concerned, they do not exist. These people are absolutely victims. I actually know someone who was lucky enough to escape from this situation; he was lured from his home country with the promise of work, and when he arrived here had his identity documents and passport taken, was forced to work unpaid, and when he escaped, his family at home were threatened. He was then recaptured by his slavers, tortured (he has scars all over his back from cigarette burns), before eventually escaping again, and finally managing to claim asylum, through a very long and difficult process. He is now a successful business owner who contributes towards the UK economy. This all happened in the early 2000s, if it had happened today, he would probably be dead instead.
The point is that such people aren't "sat safely on a beach" in France. They are often under the control of criminal gangs from the moment they leave their home country. Many have escaped from war zones or from countries where they are being persecuted as a minority, or due to their sexuality or religious beliefs. They will have endured a dangerous journey in conditions under which it would be illegal to transport cattle. Many won't even know which country they are headed towards, or their final fate. Those who are deliberately trying to come to the UK are almost all doing so to reunite with family members. If your spouse had escaped from a war zone to a safe country, it seems only fair that you might want to try to join them. The safe legal routes to do so, which used to exist, have been removed by previous governments. As it is, most refugees don't come to the UK; pretty much every country in Europe takes vastly more immigrants than we do.
In any case, you misunderstand my point, the digital ID stuff is clear and obvious bollocks, as I have said in another thread, those employing modern slaves in the black economy already don't do the existing mandatory employment checks, and they won't check ID cards either. If anything a new mandatory ID will give modern slavers another thing which they can seize from a victim and use to control them. Not all modern slaves are immigrants, many vulnerable people who are UK citizens get exploited by the same types of criminal. Look up "cuckooing" and county lines gangs for some good examples.
I simply take a strong objection to the increasing characterisation of other human beings as untermenschen. I don't like fascism, and when I spot it, I tend to call it out. Any right thinking person should do the same. "Illegal immigrants" are an easy target, because they are pretty much the most vulnerable people on the planet, with very few rights or ability to defend themselves. They make a very convenient target for the rich powerful people who want you to be distracted from their own activities of pillaging the public purse.
I do agree with you on one point here, the UK shouldn't "bankrupt itself". Follow the money; it isn't going to immigrants, it's going to billionaires. Use your brain, join the dots, don't listen to the well-funded far-right propaganda.
Such individuals get given houses/hotels to stay in in [sic], mobile phones & internet, food, full access to the NHS & Schools etc without contributing a penny to the costs - and that's all they are coming for anyway.
I've handily struck through everything in that statement that is demonstrably false. This does, of course, also only apply to those seeking asylum, and not any undocumented migrants, who get absolutely nothing whatsoever from the state, certainly not accommodation, or money.
The "hotels" bit is true, in the sense that they are restricted to living in a single location, not of their choice, whilst asylum claims are processed, of which there are a huge backlog, due to deliberate political choices by the last government. It was also a poltical choice to "house" them in hotels, and I use the term "house" advisedly, because it's closer to being in prison, with day release, if the poor sods contained there are brave enough to go outside and face the (unemployed and unemployable) flag shaggers outside who are hurling abuse at them day in and day out.
They aren't allowed to work (so not "steeling are jobs" or equivalent claims), and are given an absolute pittance to live on, so that they don't starve, as is their absolute basic human right. I think it's about £12 a week. You couldn't live off that, and neither could I.
As for why they are coming here; if you think that people risk their lives on a dangerous sea crossing, often after giving everything they own up in order to pay criminal gangs, in order to get access to our crumbling NHS (never mind the fact that they are more likely to end up working in it than making use of it), or education system, rather than being people in a situation of absolute desperation trying to find a way to survive, then you need to give your head a wobble.
I suggest you take your ignorant, bile-inflected drivel elsewhere, maybe try the unemployed divorced deadbeat dads in the local Wetherspoons on a Thursday morning who are desperate to blame their plight on anyone other than their own, feckless, selves.
"Artificial intelligence is transforming healthcare. I have seen it for myself. I have spoken to patients alive because of it," he said, citing stroke patients where AI is used to identify the precise location of blood clots.
Well, you wouldn't be speaking to patients who aren't alive because of it, so I'd be very careful about making claims of the effectiveness of "AI" in diagnostic practice. Are the false positives and false negatives being recorded, or is this sort of thing being used to suggest things for clinical practitioners to look at and verify, and they just focus on the "hits" and discard the "misses".
I'm not suggesting that ML pattern recognition systems can't be made to work in this way (and let's call a spade a spade, it's not AI), or that this doesn't work, but I'm very sceptical of exaggeration in these sorts of claims, simply because of the track record of both politicians' claims, and claims about "AI".
Firstly, did you miss the very obvious bit where I said I *didn't* want to engage with the far-right talking points?
Secondly, YT links considered as "evidence" hahahaha.
You, good sir, are a fucking idiot on both counts.
BTW, the onus is not on me to prove or disprove your point, I literally do not give a shit about the far right talking points. Keep your brain-rot to yourself.
When a new media appears, you shouldn't panic and ban it. Get yourself on it and be a 'reliable source of information', broadcasting your spin on everything.
This, very naïvely, I might suggest, assumes that such "new media" is a neutral carrier, and doesn't carry out any sort of "profiling" in which some voices, and political opinions are promoted, and others are demoted. Twitter very clearly does this, and very clearly is being used to promote the opinions of its owner, an overgrown man-child with a lot of hate speech to spread about particular minorities, political views, and indeed any who have the temerity to disagree with him. As such, it is clearly not a neutral carrier, but an instrument of propaganda. Given that Musk is actively hostile towards the UK's current government, the fact that they are still using it, and trusting its owner to correctly relay their messages to their followers, without misrepresentation, or "de-promotion", frankly beggars belief.
"They" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
What you *actually* mean, is that someone who was a member of that organisation did those things. Arguably, if your unsourced and unverified claims are true, they were criminal acts, and those responsible should be dealt with accordingly.
By this logic, though, anyone committing a violent act against another is a terrorist, and any organisation they are a member of (especially if they claim to be doing it in the name of that organisation) is a terrorist organisation. Much as I would enjoy seeing the chaos that would ensue from such organisations all designated as terrorists, I think you'd have a fair job with some of the larger ones, such as the Catholic Church, or the governments of pretty much every country on the planet. As such, reductio ad absurdum, this line of argument is clearly specious.
