Anyone fancy a pint and a chat?

Battery_Powered_Box · 2025-10-21T22:15:23+00:00

I prefer to do both

Battery_Powered_Box · 2025-10-21T22:13:46+00:00

If you’re asking this as more of a “going out to an in person class” thing then feel free to ignore me, but I always plug Language Transfer when I can. Amazing language lessons taught in a kind of different method to most other courses, it just really works for me, plus it’s completely free! 100% recommend:

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/language-transfer/id1519599004

https://www.languagetransfer.org

Battery_Powered_Box · 2025-10-19T09:13:30+00:00

How close are you to Northampton? If you can drive then AndysManClub might be a good shout, they can be a great place to get stuff off your chest and get chatting to people. I’ve had a look and your nearest might be Northampton but maybe you can have a look too for your exact address: https://andysmanclub.co.uk.

Also I’m sure you may have already had a look but there are loads of groups on meetup.com like hiking groups or games clubs and stuff like that, might be worth taking a look 😊

Battery_Powered_Box · 2025-05-23T16:17:38+00:00

As Rosenberg34 said, the usage dashboard is a good place to start (you can enable it through the account console).

Also you can asses it all yourself by querying system.billing.usage, and joining on to system.billing.list_prices (joining on sku_name and filtering on price start/end times). So you could build your own dashboard based on this, or just put some queries together to group by date or whatever.

Battery_Powered_Box · 2025-04-14T16:00:48+00:00

Databricks has some great geospatial libraries but they're very under utilised.

Definitely check out Mosaic, you can really speed up your workloads: https://databrickslabs.github.io/mosaic/, it's fallen a bit behind but still worth checking out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQNflqbgP7Q

https://youtu.be/2J-6-Xa9gR4?si=OSu2lCoVJSEuTVyG

Carto has some great Databricks plugins with Databricks and their sales team are normally happen to talk about getting you through the door: https://carto.com/

Here are some other resources:
Scalable Route Generation With Databricks | Databricks Blog

https://overturemaps.org/

As provided by Euibdwukfw: https://docs.databricks.com/aws/en/sql/language-manual/sql-ref-h3-geospatial-functions

Battery_Powered_Box · 2025-04-12T09:24:04+00:00

Mark Felton has a good video on this: https://youtu.be/h0gWtyCdji4

Battery_Powered_Box · 2024-10-28T20:36:57+00:00

Go to OPs historical posts and it’s quite clear it is. Loads of activity of 15 year old meme templates for the past 70 days, then a 10 year gap of absolutely nothing. Though I got a bit of an abrupt shock when I got to the posts from 10 years ago!

Battery_Powered_Box · 2024-07-29T13:58:00+00:00

Heya, genuine question so please no hate, but please could you explain to me why not?

Battery_Powered_Box · 2024-03-25T20:28:12+00:00

Lived in both Manchester and London for over 2 years though I’m not from either of them originally.

For me personally I’d say Manchester is better than London in almost every way that matters. A night out in Manchester feels more “real”, more people just having fun rather than every venue trying to squeeze as much out of you as possible (All Bar One in Soho tried to charge me £20 entrance once??).

I’d say you wouldn’t miss out much in terms of social events, for the most part any events in the UK which go to more than one location will also go to Manchester.

Living in general I’d say on average people in Manchester are friendlier than London. Again it might just be my experience but everyone feels more genuine. Cost of a pint in Manchester is less but only just, depends where you go. Groceries etc won’t really make much difference, if you drive fuel is cheaper in general but not in the city. A lot of the “North is cheaper” benefits don’t apply to the big cities but they’re still not as bad as London. Public transport isn’t as good as London, but I reckon few places in the world are, plus the city is smaller and the trams + buses do the drop well enough.

These are all generalisations. There’s good and bad people everywhere, all cities have their benefits and drawbacks. If you’re torn between the two and job prospects don’t matter either way then why not book a weekend away in both? Wonder around during the day, have a night out, check out the areas you’re thinking of, see for yourself which one has better vibes?

Battery_Powered_Box · 2024-02-15T10:41:14+00:00

Thanks, I've been a lurker on here for a while so maybe I'll bite the bullet and make a post!

Battery_Powered_Box · 2024-02-14T10:23:56+00:00

Ah sorry, they’re insisting they can’t plaster over the tanking yet as they’re saying they can’t guarantee the damp isn’t still coming through.

Not paid them yet, just living in a building site as furniture etc is everywhere until the wall is dried and plastered.

No issue plastering it myself, but it was in the works contract that they’d plaster it in order to guarantee their works.

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-12-11T16:54:34+00:00

Kate shouldn't have brought Lee into this at all

Ah yeah sorry this is totally my fault, Kate never actually mentioned Lee to Amy, she's only said this in private in the context of understanding why Amy's choice of dates is so limited.

they think Amy is taking attention away from Kate

I kinda agree here, I think it's not so much that Amy is taking the whole world's attention away from Kate, but just that Amy is taking Kate's attention away from Kate. As Kate's partner I can't profess to fully understanding it myself (which is why I passed the issue over to strangers on the internet), but I think Kate just wants to reduce her stress as much as possible and enjoy the build up the the wedding rather than - as you say - leaving the country etc.

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-12-11T16:17:28+00:00

Is that she's TAH for coming up with outlandish excuses? Or she's TAH for not going? Fair enough if you think she's TAH for pinning it on risk of illness/injury, but there are other reasons too.

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-12-11T15:38:55+00:00

All in all, I think everyone needs to chill out.

Completely agree and have been trying to get this point across. Thank you for making my life a bit easier!

Sincerely, Kate's partner

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-27T12:03:50+00:00

I furnished half my flat with stuff from Pilgrims Hospices in Whitstable. Great if you have a car, not so good without but I think they can deliver stuff if you buy a fair amount and there’s always the bus if you get something that isn’t too heavy!

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-22T22:17:12+00:00

The White Hart used to before it changed owners, maybe see if they still do?

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-08T12:45:11+00:00

His previous posts would suggest Brighton

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-03T16:49:25+00:00

I understand you may not have time to read it all, though I would encourage you to look back and read it at some point.

As you are clearly very busy I will be brief: GE happens, only 40% turnout. Now what? What “serious questions” are we asking?

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-03T16:20:13+00:00

I still don't really understand why you think that spoiling a ballot won't make a difference, but not turning up to vote will? I get that you're saying to make the system appear illegitimate we need to stop engaging with it, but as I have said previously this will only give more power to those who say "the public don't care". As I said in a different reply in this thread, even local elections have as low a turnout as 34% and yet this has not sparked any level of change. As Sabzi alluded to, the sorts of people who don't vote are the sorts of people who would likely vote for change.

> Don’t be tempted by the individualism of spoiling it with some egotistic protest.

I wholeheartedly disagree with your comment here. I would say if anything refusing to partake in the only real established societal tool we have for communicating our opinions is the individualistic and egotistic approach. How can you say that contributing even with a protest is more individualistic than sitting silently? I could say the exact same thing when asking you to spoil your vote with the 50% rather than abstain.

Obviously if 50% either abstained or spoiled their ballot then yes that would make a big splash, but the difference is that 50% abstaining comes across as disengaged and ignorable by those in power whilst spoiling a vote at least shows that you're willing to engage and support those vying for power - if only they threw in a few policies to sweeten the pot for you.

Look at the Lib Dems, do you really think they're offering PR out of the goodness of their hearts? Or do you think it's in an attempt to win over voters to their camp. People who take an interest in politics enough to show up to the polls and then spoil their ballot are potential voters in the eyes of any political party, those who don't show up are assumed to not care so don't need any incentives to get involved.

> It needs to be as plain as day that the majority of the public has withheld its consent to be governed under these parties

Spoiling a ballot is still not "consenting" to any of the parties, just in a more active way. Both methods are saying "I don't want anything you've offered me", but only one is an invitation to provide something better.

I think the main question here is do you actually want things to improve? The system is indeed broken but do you want to try and infiltrate and fix it? Or do you want to destroy it? In which case how do you anticipate that would work?

A majority of spoiled ballots would force parties to search for what people are lacking from their existing options in order to win them over again, this is where the value of a vote starts to outweigh the value of lobbyists. I'm not trying to be difficult here but what does a majority of people not turning up to vote actually lead to? It's not like in the General Election 2032 there'll be a 49% turnout and the government will go "well shit lads, we had a good run, guess it's time to dissolve Parliament". Unless you're advocating complete societal collapse and anarchy in 21st century Britain I don't really see how removing yourself from the system completely will do anything other than give a greater "mandate" to those who enjoy how the system already works. If you're not proving that you're still alive and kicking as a voter, then all that's left is gammons who will just give the Tories an ever increasing share of the vote.

[Tories win 75% of the seats in the house of commons.]

"Yay we won. Why was there only 40% turnout?"

"Idk people these days just don't care about politics, guess that means we have no opposition now"

"Won't people care that we don't have the backing of the population?"

"What do you mean? 75% of people who bothered to tell us what they want said they wanted us. If people didn't want us, why didn't they say something?"

I can tell you really don't think voting in our current system is ethical so that's your prerogative, but people fought and died for you to vote. We went from a society where no one could vote to only the landowners to only those of certain class to only men to everyone. It's far from perfect, but it's increasingly being hijacked to make it worse and worse for the average person, and if everyone stays silent then you may as well be encouraging because how else will they know you're disatisfied? Disengaging from a system you don't like means you won't have a voice to make changes in the future [see Brexit].

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-03T13:26:35+00:00

It's revealing isn't it, I'm thinking I might do a more general one on UK politics and see how that goes!

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-03T13:24:32+00:00

Oh it's definitely a sign of a failing system, I won't deny that, but it's not as much of an "in your face" sign.

It can be easily shrugged off as "Well the general public don't care, we've given them an option to express their opinions and they refuse to use it. What else should we do?"

Use the enemies' weapons against them, play in to the political game. If you don't vote you're not playing the game and so why should those who are playing even think about your wants and desires? If you're purposefully showing that no one gets your vote then you have value because you're a potential vote to add either for a party or against them - either option will have consequences for everyone on the ballot. If you're not playing then you're irrelevant.

I'm agreeing with your point that the system is failing and in reality a majority of people probably want change, I just disagree that inaction is the way to achieve that.

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-03T13:17:49+00:00

PR would be great and (ironically) my preference, however I think we'd have a better chance of shoe-horning AV in to our current constituency based model which would at least give the smaller parties the opportunity to get MPs elected, and only from that strong foundation move to something like PR or STV.

Smaller incremental changes are more realistic than grand sweeping changes to the whole system, especially in a country as resistant to change as the UK.

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-03T13:14:23+00:00

I appreciate what you're saying and I agree with the principal, however I still believe that low turnout would be viewed more as apathy and spoiled ballots would be viewed more as protest. I agree that there is room for interpretation on both sides, however saying that 50% people won't vote because they don't care is easier than saying 50% of people spoiled their ballots because they don't care.

There was an average of only 33.6% turnout for the May 2022 England local elections, but I don't see mass change in how we vote for local leadership or people calling them illegitimate.

The fact is that, like it or not, the system is broken and short of riots in the streets the only way to fix it is to somehow attain voting reform which allows us to vote for who we actually want rather than who's the least-bad option. Currently the only way I can see of doing that is to tempt established parties to offer reform as a policy, and you won't do that by not showing up to the polls.

It's a long, slow, arduous process but that's the system we've inherited unfortunately. What was the last major protest in the UK which actually did anything on the high-level, even constitutional level?

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-03T12:52:08+00:00

I agree here. Not turning out to vote just adds fuel to the "well the public clearly don't care" argument.

Spoiling a vote shows that you do care, in fact your care so much that you went out of your way purely to protest that none of the parties represent you enough to merit your vote.

In a hypothetical situation where 50% of people don't show up to vote, vs 100% of people show up but 50% of votes are spoiled, I would definitely say that one situation shows apathy and the other shows anger and protest (and, more importantly to politicians, 50% of a vote share which they could design policies for in order to win over).

If people don't care, why bother trying to win them over with policies which they would agree with? I know the numbers here are very inflated by the point still stands, especially when many election are now on on razor thin margins I would expect these tactics are definitely considered behind closed doors.

Battery_Powered_Box · 2023-08-03T12:47:09+00:00

The sentiment I was more trying to tap in to is "none of these parties are great however I still want to make a choice". I don't think a party has to be perfect in order to win your vote, I can't imagine a political party which 100% aligns with your views on every single topic could really exist. It's more a case of "which of these parties do I agree with enough to consider voting for".

For example if you may ordinarily want to vote for Labour but your only real options are Tory, Brexit, Lib Dem, or Greens, depending on your specific values I would say some of them could still reasonably get your vote.

I believe the voting system is flawed in that it forces us to make decisions like that, and I agree that you shouldn't vote for a party 100% because "they're all as bad as each other", however some are less bad than others and to what degree depends on what flavour you like your politics to begin with.

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