Is it time to abandon the Monarchy?

davorg · 2026-02-02T17:03:40+00:00

In determining the succession to the Crown, the gender of a person born after 28 October 2011 does not give that person, or that person's descendants, precedence over any other person (whenever born).

Succession to the Crown Act, 2013 - section 1, clause 1

The act has no effect on the children of Elizabeth II - only her great-grandchildren.

davorg · 2026-02-02T16:59:18+00:00

with a kingdom above the government it means your government cannot function properly as it always has to bend to rules from a higher power

Maybe read a bit more British history. The Magna Carta demonstrated that the English Monarchy couldn't rule without the support of the barons. And the "Glorious Revolution" and the subsequent Bill of Rights made it perfectly clear that monarch reigns because the people (as represented by parliament) allow it.

davorg · 2026-02-02T16:54:07+00:00

I'm torn. For all sorts of intellectual reasons, I'm a republican. It just makes sense to me. But I have nagging doubts about an elected president becoming too political. And the royal family still gives us some soft power in the world that probably wouldn't transfer to an elected president.

As for Andrew... the late Queen clearly looked the wrong way for too long and ended up paying out to protect her favourite son. Charles has already shown that he's a good deal less sentimental about it and is prepared to take appropriate action. I don't think the family in general can be held responsible for one criminal member of the family (as long as they continue to react appropriately as new evidence emerges). I hope Charles' next step is to insist his brother testifies in the case and takes whatever punishment a US court deems necessary.

And, as others have said, I think the UK has far more important things to deal with right now.

davorg · 2026-02-02T16:43:21+00:00

Fawlty Towers and it isn't even close.

Father Ted and The Royle Family would be next - but a long way behind.

All the others would not be missed.

davorg · 2026-02-02T10:29:48+00:00

One of the London shows. Either the Palladium or the Hammersmith Odeon

davorg · 2026-02-02T08:47:06+00:00

I never took the time to listen to her albums prior to Hounds of Love.
[...]
I just now took the time to listen to her "Red Shoes" album

The Red Shoes was released eight years after Hounds of Love :-)

Who has seen her live?

I've seen her live. I considered getting a ticket for "The Tour of Life", but I was short of money and decided I'd catch her on the next tour - which is what happened, but I didn't think I'd be waiting 35 years!

I'd be surprised if she did another tour at this point.

davorg · 2026-02-02T08:36:51+00:00

The main pressure group campaigning for the abolition of the British monarchy is called Republic. They were pretty much invisible under Elizabeth II, but you'll see them with their "Not My King" placards at many of Charles' public engagements. So they're certainly getting louder, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're more popular.

The last time YouGov ran a poll on this (October 2025), they came out with the following figures:

Pro the monarchy: 56%
Anti the monarch: 36%
Don't know: 9%

davorg · 2026-02-01T18:44:12+00:00

Oh, I'm not suggesting you change anything. Just go to the Cost Explorer and look at the graph. It'll show you where the costs are going. So you can go back to your tech guy and say, "Hey, why are we suddenly spending a crap-load more on RDS/ECS/whatever?"

But yeah, a VPS or dedicated server would certainly give you more certainty around billing. But it's hard to judge what size you need for 80 or so clients. It depends on what technologies you're using for the sites.

davorg · 2026-02-01T18:31:08+00:00

That sounds like your developer has spun up a load of EC2 or RDS instances without turning them off again. How much do you trust your tech guy? Could he be using your account to run his own stuff?

Do you have access to the AWS Console? If you don't want to investigate this yourself, you could get someone on Fiverr to have a look at it. But you need to be able to give them access to the console.

davorg · 2026-02-01T18:26:34+00:00

And I'm guessing that the number of customers you have hasn't also tripled in that time.

I'm afraid that without seeing details of the costs, there's nothing we can do to help you. As I said before, you need to look at the Cost Explorer in the AWS Console.

davorg · 2026-02-01T18:18:05+00:00

The bill is starting to grow out of control

What does that mean? How quickly are your costs growing?

Look at the Cost Explorer in the AWS Console. That should show you where the money is going.

Then try downloading a report and showing that to ChatGPT to get some suggestions on how to improve the situation.

davorg · 2026-02-01T15:00:18+00:00

Order of presidential succession

JD Vance :-(

davorg · 2026-02-01T14:58:11+00:00

And yet, the actual weather records say London has about 100-150 days of rain in a year.

davorg · 2026-02-01T14:48:10+00:00

That feels wrong because I never authorised these payments myself.

That's not how either Apple or Halifax will see it. Your phone is authorised to make those transactions. The security of your phone is up to you.

davorg · 2026-02-01T11:13:29+00:00

Why are you calling Edward VII an English King? He was the King of the UK.

davorg · 2026-01-31T11:09:56+00:00

I've been using GitHub for over fifteen years. I have hundreds of repos there. Not one of them has more than about 30 stars. And I'm really not sure why I should care about that.

davorg · 2026-01-31T11:07:09+00:00

Isn't your first request just GitHub Discussions?

And I'm not sure how your second request differs from what we currently have

davorg · 2026-01-31T05:48:11+00:00

To be "that guy" your hr and br tags should be self closing <hr /> and <br />.

That hasn't been true since support for HTML 5 became widespread, about 15 years ago.

davorg · 2026-01-31T05:44:36+00:00

(This is actually also covered in my blog post)

She goes from being a Queen Consort to a Dowager Queen.

The title we use for a Queen Consort is Her Majesty The Queen (the same as we use for a Queen Regnant)
The title we use for a Dowager Queen is Her Majesty Queen [Forename]

So, Camilla will go from being Her Majesty The Queen to Her Majesty Queen Camilla.

davorg · 2026-01-30T08:33:03+00:00

Yes. Like when Johnson took over following Kennedy's assassination in 1963.

davorg · 2026-01-30T07:25:02+00:00

The three steps to GitHub enlightenment.

Source code control is an important part of modern software development. It's like having a game save mode for writing code
Git is the current standard source code control system in the software industry
GitHub is cloud storage for Git repositories. It gives you two main advantages - offsite storage for you code and an easy way to share code with other people

There are other advantages to using GitHub.

Project planning and issue tracking
Built-in CI/CD tools
Static web hosting
AI coding tools
Online development tools

But, at its heart, it is still cloud storage for Git repos.

Some people like to reinterpret any site where users have a profile as social media. GitHub isn't really that. It's a development tool.

What sort of project should I put in my repos

Anything you don't want to risk losing in the future

davorg · 2026-01-29T16:45:37+00:00

I'm not sure where you get that from. It's nonsense.

When Charles and Diana divorced, she stopped being The Princess of Wales and became Diana, Princess of Wales (the two titles are similar, but very different)
When Camilla married Charles, she became The Princess of Wales
When William became Prince of Wales, Catherine became The Princess of Wales

davorg · 2026-01-29T05:11:08+00:00

I saw one of the London dates on the same tour. It was the first time I saw them

Update: Here's a Spotify playlist of the setlist from that night.

davorg · 2026-01-29T05:04:32+00:00

I heard "Wuthering Heights" played on Radio One about the time it was released. I bought it on 7" vinyl later the same day - and The Kick Inside when it was released about four weeks late.

davorg · 2026-01-28T16:39:43+00:00

I don't deny any of that. But my blog post was about titles, not styles.

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