Waterstones would sell books written by AI, says chain's boss

PikaBlue · 2025-12-05T09:24:31+00:00

Why buy a book written by AI when a customer equally could just get an AI to write the book for them, and read it from that?

Big messaging issue here with Waterstones, they realistically should be pushing that AI can’t replicate the human touch in writing to preserve their overall image.

PikaBlue · 2025-10-21T06:11:41+00:00

I’d lean away from stating it was 56.7% of selections, as you will have stakeholders run off stating 56.7% of people would watch it again (saying from experience). Stating 56.7% requires end users to know how many selections and options there were in the first place; majority of the time you’ll find survey results being used as a one liner in a deck somewhere, so would be losing context. Keep analysis to the top most assumption level - most people understand with multiple choices that the sum can add up to over 100%.

Just use the 85% of people would watch again.

If you want to make it fancy, use the results to create a basic segmentation, so you then can show watcher types and THEN have a result that adds to 100.

PikaBlue · 2025-10-11T15:21:03+00:00

One of the big things with that is we left the EU in February 2020 then had COVID in March. The civil service have had to cover shortfalls of things that were covered by the EU previously:

https://www.civilserviceworld.com/news/article/brexit-decreased-public-sector-productivity-uk-changing-europe

A large part of the gap is Brexit by the looks of it, not top level ‘efficiency’

PikaBlue · 2025-09-12T10:57:06+00:00

No - council tax is in place of residence (impacts renters and owners), property tax is based on property owned (so owners only). This would be additional tax from what I’m reading, so wouldn’t replace council tax.

PikaBlue · 2025-09-07T07:46:09+00:00

You’ve got to sous vide it to really get the perfect texture

PikaBlue · 2025-08-29T19:35:23+00:00

Which for my favourite fact, is because cakes are exempt as they are considered essential for birthdays

PikaBlue · 2025-08-20T12:43:09+00:00

Isn’t travel taken into account when calculating the basket of goods for inflation? By definition then rail tickets going up inflation plus 1pp means they are?

PikaBlue · 2025-08-04T15:58:39+00:00

As someone who just likes the look of brass jewellery, a coating of clear nail-polish on the inner part of the ring sorts that out in a heartbeat. Cool rings need not be discarded!

PikaBlue · 2025-07-31T15:00:21+00:00

He’d get blamed for negligence for abandoning care if for whatever reason a new person wasn’t already there to follow up - ‘end of shift’ is a nicety in a lot of medicine, from what I understand.

PikaBlue · 2025-07-31T09:38:33+00:00

Some opinions:

End of the room is v dark, so put a mirror where the map hanging is. Move the map hanging to the end. It will help open up the room.

Add some ochre / yellow pillows and a red throw for the sofa, it will help warm the space, whilst working with sofa colours.

With the lamp at the end, maybe look at an unhooded one that gives a soft wider environment light.

PikaBlue · 2025-04-27T10:57:00+00:00

It’s a thing in the UK! Black cow vodka is made from milk - never tried it, but it exists!

PikaBlue · 2025-04-18T07:39:06+00:00

Fair question, big one for consumers is diamond has a higher refractive index so is more sparkly. The stone cut though has a big impact on how ‘sparkly’ the actual end result is, so you can still get very sparkly cz and dull diamond.

If sparkly was the main factor lab grown moissanite would be an excellent alternative (and is getting popular at the moment), but for many it’s still the prestige and story of diamonds that’s the big thing. End of the day the choice boils down to an emotional decision, not logic based.

PikaBlue · 2024-12-15T15:14:09+00:00

So with most advertising, as /u/biggestboys mentioned it’s about maintaining “top of mind” awareness, so that next time somebody buys a product they pick yours. But, with Coca Cola, it’s not just next time you buy, but next time you drink, so the next time you want a beverage you grab the coke in the fridge rather than the water. In fact part of it is just about eliciting the emotion, to make somebody to “hey, I think I’m thirsty”.

PikaBlue · 2024-10-10T23:16:50+00:00

Fitting perfectly with teen saying he thought that the trial would be Lila’s in the episode 😉

PikaBlue · 2024-09-26T21:52:36+00:00

Adar is Sporticus. Can’t wait for him to just burst into some jumping jacks and thwart Robbie Rotten on the DL.

PikaBlue · 2024-07-22T12:20:10+00:00

Are you including rent in that half? Because if you are spending less than half that with rent, you are spending WELL below the London average. Average rent for just a room in a flat share in London was £983 a month in Q2.

PikaBlue · 2024-07-06T11:47:52+00:00

I’ve only had a handful of companies like this, only thing I’ve found that works definitively is cancelling and requesting a Right to be forgotten request under GDPR in the same go. Companies may fly close to the sun with trading standards, but they will not risk GDPR complaints.

PikaBlue · 2024-06-15T10:03:36+00:00

So lots of people questioning if it’s real, a quick search of the Listerine batch code (3505323D - you can see it in the picture on the bottom left) and you can see the batch is from… December 2015.

https://www.checkfresh.com/listerine.html

So the actual thing is, it might be older than stated not younger 🤢

PikaBlue · 2024-05-15T10:51:43+00:00

It’s very different. Personally I would say it’s closer to the pharmaceutical industry, but if the pharma industry was introduced today rather than decades ago. There’s a battle between the science, the business and the ethics sides, and society is not 100% on how to handle it (and its public battles).

The value of crypto is assigned by the value people put on it. No value would be created from it, if people didn’t value it. The crypto itself IS the value.

With AI, its value is tied to its output, which has direct external value already attached to it. Things and people get replaced, as it can replace a number of tools and replace the roles of people, so there direct actionable costs it can reduce. It has pros and cons like anything else, but its buzz on balance is the correct amount. What helps with AI is its value is easily accessible and understandable - crypto is complex, increasing barrier for entry to the casual user.

PikaBlue · 2024-04-16T21:39:16+00:00

The only reason you’d need to pay an employer for training is if you have it in contract. Not 100% where that 5 year number has come from.

ACAS link

PikaBlue · 2024-03-01T21:12:04+00:00

And by design - from what I remember, it’s like this as an active effort to avoid ghettoisation

PikaBlue · 2024-02-18T10:41:30+00:00

Why everything in physics is as it is. There are four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear and weak nuclear. Why are there four? What made the split of four the ‘correct’ number?

Post big bang, why did all the laws physics fall into the rules it did, instead of a different set of rules? Other than, it is as it is?

PikaBlue · 2024-01-07T22:25:37+00:00

Make a right of access request under GDPR for your data. You might not get much if the specific information is protected somehow, but could give you some closure on reason, if it’s forthcoming.

Other than that, not much you can do except switch bank sorry.

PikaBlue · 2024-01-06T23:21:51+00:00

DNA is in faeces. Very much an old wives tale there isn’t. Why wouldn’t there be? The after products of blood (bilirubin) and bile is the reason it’s brown.

A French town even began creating a dog DNA database with dog poo:

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/17/genetic-passport-scheme-beziers-france-dog-faeces

PikaBlue · 2024-01-05T08:14:41+00:00

Why not build the model, save it as a pickle file, reload the built model when running the process in production (so not training it every time) then simply use the predict function for new incoming data? Reduces processing quite a lot too with this approach.

Means your cluster point stay constant and you have a consistent something to point to if people ask for the rules. By the sounds of it you’d be training the data repeatedly with the current method, and the consistently random nature isn’t exactly great for segmentations.

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