Re: we need a two-tier power system
Yes, I'm saying businesses should have their power cut off before people.
And then the people who work for those businesses get sent home, so don't have money to pay for their electricity. That won't help.
6922 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Oct 2011
Er, because if we don't have any kids we'll be fucked
How did you get from "more than 2 kids" to "any kids"? 2 children per couple is close to replacement levels, if people want more then they should be willing to accept the additional cost themselves, and not simply assume that everyone else will be happy to pay for them.
Where's the personal responsibility in this?
Personal responsibility? Such an outmoded, Thatcherite idea. This is the 21st century, everyone is entitled to everything they want today, it's the government's fault if they don't get it, and the taxpayer who is responsible for picking up the bill if the beneficiary can't pay.
(/sarcasm)
How often have we seen well-intentioned developers try to improve something by removing complex and less-frequently used features which affect performance or configuration, in order to to streamline it and make it easier to use? The inevitable result is that eventually someone who needs those features glues them back on, as an even clunkier wart than the original.
It always amuses me that a country like France, which vaunts its socialist model of égalité, fraternité, etc. still constructs an elite motorway network so that those with money can pay for fast and smooth travel, yet supposedly capitalist countries like the UK and USA mostly provide an open high-speed road network available to all for no additional charge.
I'd like to see a graph of "death rate vs time", and I would not be surprised to see an uptick after 31 January 1995.
Not hard to find, and you'd be wrong. One spike in 1999, the Ladbroke Grove accident when a driver passed a signal at danger, and another for Great Heck in 2001 when a driver fell asleep and rolled his Land Rover onto the track, but generally low and falling.
Not so. There were 732 deaths from 146 accidents in 46 years when there was national rail provided by the state between 17 April 1948 and 15 October 1994. There were 92 deaths from 50 accidents in 28 years when there was privatised rail between 31 January 1995 and 24 August 2021.
Any nationalised firm, especially one that is a model of happy customer service (I was going to say efficiency but DB could have been bleeding cash for all I know) should have laws laid down about the following, that must be obeyed, even after privatisation:
1) Maximum X% of profit going to shareholders. Any other profit is reinvested in the firm.
That's what the regulator is supposed to deal with. Unfortunately most regulators for these industries are made up from the same civil servants who ran the industry when it was nationalised, so their main aim in life is to increase their own power & department size, and they tend to assume that money grows on trees well-watered by taxpayers. Any well-run firm will have the balance between profit-after-tax and dividends/interest correct, or their competitors will eat their lunch.
2) Maximum salary (including all share options, and other bonus bollocks) for C-Suite capped to X times the average employee salary.
You'll never get the C-suite filled by competent people like that. Pay peanuts, get monkeys. All the decent directors will up sticks and find another position.
3) Bonuses for the C-Suite are cancelled for any 12 month period in which 1% or more of employees are "let go, made redundant, downsized, or any other HR bollocks which means fired".
I wouldn't set a straight percentage, sometimes there are good reasons why some staff need to be laid off, yet the business can still be successful. If you electrify a rail line, you don't need people with diesel maintenance experience, for example. Better to tie the bonuses directly to overal business performance, of which staff numbers are just a part. There again, that's what the regulator should enforce. Unfortunately they are usually toothless, incompetent, and/or asleep.
There's quite a lot of recent choral stuff written by John Rutter, who describes himself as 'An agnostic supporter of the Christian faith', where does that fit? I'm not religious (and can't sing), but I like some of Rutter's music, although it tends to be a bit saccharine in large quantites.
we did see a few more open-ended interactions, but most of those were Wikipedia lookups
Brings back memories of that Burger King ad from a few years back, which triggered readout of the Wikipedia article about the "Whopper" via an "OK Google" statement.
Playing the contents of a user-editable encyclopedia article as part of a publicity campaign was never going to end well...
Baud rates and bit rates are connected, but not equivalent.
The baud rate is a measure of the number of symbols per second, but each symbol can represent multiple bits. A V.21 300 bit/s modem operated at 300 baud, but a V.32 9600 bit/s modem was only 2400 baud, because each symbol can represent 4 bits.
The answer is to have the police available, turn up, and actually do something
True, but where's the incentive to do that when the courts will release anyone they catch with only a ticking off, even when they're repeat offenders?
It must be disheartening to keep arresting the same people time and time again, knowing that it won't have the slightest impact on them.
Go back to proper checkouts.
Why, so that those of us who just want to do a quick shop have to stand in line while some bored person at the head of the queue shares their children's entire life story with the cashier, waits until everything has been scanned before even starting to pack, and finally takes an age to find their loyalty card and their credit card.
No wonder people prefer online shopping.
Because the probe part sticks out which isn't very stealthy and it's already plumbed with female parts for the boom.
Well, the probe could probably be made movable so it only sticks out when required for coupling, that works ok in other situations...
As for the plumbing, isn't gender reassignment all the rage these days?
I recently voted by proxy in the AGM for an apartment building where I own a property. The election rules were quite straightforward - if a person for whom a proxy vote was submitted turns up in person, the proxy vote is cancelled and the in-person vote takes precedence. Surely the same process could have been followed here?
The Wikipedia entry makes interesting reading, such as "In 2020, The Observer gave ScottishPower an award for the year's "worst customer service" for "its singular pursuit of revenue", including sending bills, debt collectors' letters and the threat of bailiffs to people who did not use its services, then refusing to register their complaints."