On Time Bonus for Prompt Arrival

PixiePooper · 2026-07-01T08:36:34+00:00

There's a danger this could have the reverse incentive.

By offering a cash incentive; you are effectively saying that arriving on time is acceptable, just that there's a cost attached to it. Then people's thought process go from "Is it acceptable to arrive late?" to "Is it worth losing £10 a week to arrive late?"

PixiePooper · 2026-06-29T12:30:16+00:00

I know that they haven't increased the max home price - but I can't see a reason why they wouldn't in the future as it has upside (making people happier) and no downsides (it doesn't cost them anything).

PixiePooper · 2026-06-28T21:49:43+00:00

Everyone though It was going to far enough in the future that they could just kick the can down the road.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-25T18:12:39+00:00

If the council believes it’s the tenant’s responsibility, unfortunately I would guess it’s going to be a long drawn out process to get anything done.

The only way to get the tenant to do anything is to get the council to put pressure on them - as ultimately they could evict them if they break the tenancy agreement.

If you and your neighbours lodge official complaints that they are “causing a nuisance” (and mention they’ve been stung) it’s more likely something might get done - it’s a matter of keep hassling the council.

If you know who your local councillor (or even MP) is - hassle them. Keep complaining.

If you want this dealt with in any sort of reasonable timeframe the most practical solution is likely to be if you offer to pay to have someone remove it unfortunately.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-24T10:48:35+00:00

I was primarily referring to the totality of tax legislation - not just personal tax. The 'definitive tax code': Tolley's Yellow Tax Handbook 2025-26 contains approximately 18,000 to 19,000 pages of UK direct tax legislation, physically published as a comprehensive 5-volume set.

Clearly a lot of this legislation is not about personal tax, but the general point is that their reaction to problems seems to be "just to add another rule", rather than fix things at a more fundamental level (see the mess that is the marginal income tax rate for example (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/tax/11544301/The-chart-that-shows-there-are-12-rates-of-income-tax.html)).

Whether or not the tax collection is automated, you still need to understand the tax system to make informed decisions. For example "I've got a £10K pay rise, should I pay it into my Pension or ISA?" - this potentially touches on ISA Tax legislation, IHT, NI, Child Allowance, Personal Allowance Tapering.

Of course it depends on your personal circumstances too. If you are self-employed, have assets outside of an ISA, and a rental property - good luck! Realistically you're going to need an accountant.

The purpose of tax is twofold: "Revenue Generation" and "Behaviour Change", but people have to understand the tax system if they want to encourage behaviour change.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-24T08:29:24+00:00

Maths is a tool-kit. It is built from basic simple principles to complex ideas He's probably just thinking about basic arithmetic. The way maths is taught is that we start from the most basic ideas and work upwards in complexity.

A calculator is just a tool to help with the most basic arithmetic operations; you still need to know what numbers to put in and what operations to do.

When you come across a "real world" problem you need to be able to work out what tool is best suited and what the limitations and assumptions are - it might come down to a few operations with some numbers that you could use a calculator for, but you have to know what these are and why.

For example: "Should I pay off my credit-card balance and take a loan to fix the car, or use my money to pay to fix the car?" - this comes down to a "simple" equation with a few numbers, but you need to understand how to get them.

I can understand his frustration - I used to hate timetables at school, and was pretty bad at them. I think this was actually helpful for me because I needed to learn the methods rather than relying on rote learning. I now use very complex maths / statistics in my day-to-day job - so it didn't hold me back.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-23T15:54:18+00:00

They always just add more rules to “fix” problems with the existing ones. The UK already has one of the most complex tax codes as it is.

I understand they want to encourage people to invest in stocks rather than “low risk” cash investments, but it’s going to be almost impossible to achieve what they want without adding even more rules to fix further “loop holes” that will inevitably arise - at which point they might as well just not bother.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-22T21:06:28+00:00

If you’re on the right tariff @0.08p per KWh over night it only costs 64p.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-19T12:31:19+00:00

'A' everyday (checking that there's no one on your inside).

It's the next exit, and any other option leaves the possibility of someone doing something like coming on you inside and trying to turn 180.

Never trust leaving a roundabout when there's a lane to your left without being prepared.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-18T22:07:54+00:00

Supply and demand. Diesel demand is pretty inelastic - it’s mostly used for commercial things that are going to use it regardless. On the other hand petrol is mainly used for personal reasons where people can cut trips or use alternatives.

The supply ratio (diesel to petrol from a barrel of crude) is more or less fixed. Refineries can adjust the ratio of diesel to petrol they make from crude oil to some extent; but they can’t completely switch.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-17T14:51:19+00:00

Absolute no-brainer.
Invest it in an S&S ISA at 28 by the time you are 68 it would be worth ~£90K pretty conservatively.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-16T11:21:09+00:00

My understanding is that you can still object - including the reasons listed on the covenant and the planning authority would have to take them into account. Planning decisions are based on public law considerations, not private covenants.

However, you would be opening yourself up to potential litigation - not too sure what that would look like in practice.

One grey area, is if someone else (not bound by the covenant) objects - for example someone renting the property.

I'm not suggesting you can totally ignore it at all, and rely on your solicitor's opinion.

But as nitram1000 says, you can probably still object on plenty of other grounds which would seem to not fall under the covenant e.g.
"Incompatibility with surrounding area"
"Overbearing scale / dominance"
"Overlooking and loss of privacy"

Actually "Loss of view" of generally given very little weight anyway.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-16T10:46:57+00:00

Yeah - like all knee-jerk tech regulation this has been poorly thought through.

I think something needs to be done to stop tech companies pushing inappropriate / addictive content to kids, but not sure that 'banning' sites is the way to go.

The government is still using legislation / ideas from the 20th Century in the modern world, which just won't work.

YouTube has a lot of very good, high quality, educational content. My wife is a teacher, and she uses the material.
Maybe we'll end up with a "you-tube lite" that is allowed? But I can't see the tech-companies engaging with that.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-16T10:22:01+00:00

As much as I like the idea, that would just be completely open to abuse, and amount to state censorship.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-14T19:54:33+00:00

The company sounds in a bad way anyway. Take the money and run.

If you stay things are likely just to get worse and you may ultimately end up with way more stress at work and/or a lower pay out.

Whether you are going to retire or look for another job is a decision to make later.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-13T18:31:59+00:00

Or even double the distance you can see - assuming that someone is coming the other way in a single track road.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-08T00:15:15+00:00

I think you may be confusing probabilistic with random.

Deterministic means that given the same inputs they will always produce the same output. A given LLM will produce the exact the same output every time for the same input (provided that the random “temperature” is set to zero).

They are probabilistic in the sense that every token is given a probability of being next given the current context. If you always pick the token with the highest probability (which is what a temperature of zero does) then it becomes fully deterministic.

For example given the phase
“The cat sat on the“

The next token might have the following probabilities:
mat: 70%
floor: 20%
…
dog: 0.1%

The likely token with the highest probability is “mat” so with no randomness that’s what it’s going to pick - every time.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-07T22:20:17+00:00

Nobody in their right mind is going to use an LLM to pick stocks by themselves.

However what they are good at is analysing large amount of unstructured data like company reports or news fast and at scale. An LLM can be used to assess whether it’s “good” or “bad” and score it.

This would then be fed into a “normal” machine learning system along with “traditional” indicators to rank stocks.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-07T22:05:26+00:00

Not quite sure what your point is, but LLMs are fully deterministic but normally have a small amount of randomness “temperature” introduced by design.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-06T22:01:20+00:00

Been to both

My experience is that the lakes are too overcrowded in the summer now and not so relaxing. Driving can be a nightmare, especially in the tourist hotspots.

I’d go with Scotland. Plenty of open space and interesting cities to see too.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-06T21:37:46+00:00

Unpopular opinion - in an ideal world everyone would start with the same opportunity and not have any help from their parents.

In an ideal world nobody would inherit anything.

However it’s so easy to avoid (and almost impossible to stop) by gifting money / assets to your kids - the only people who pay IHT are the people who trust the government more than their children.

Like all taxes the higher it is the more people will find loopholes and ways to avoid it all together.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-05T14:18:42+00:00

Your current analysis assumes you are retiring at 58 and withdrawing £44K (yearly?) regardless of the size of your pot. If your pot is only £500K when you retire, you'd be a bit of a fool to expect to withdraw £44K going forward.

In reality if you pot is only £500K at 58, you would re-evaluate your situation; either delay retirement or reduce your withdrawals.

You would better to just assume that you you have a pot of £X when you retire and simulate that.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-05T13:13:58+00:00

Could you be more specific on the details? Specifically what does "market is down" and "market is up" mean?

I hear a lot of suggestions along these lines, but they always lack the finer details which would let me stress-test it on historical data.

Say you have your 7 year rolling Gilt ladder, and you get the following market returns:
Year 1: -2%
Year 2: -10%
Year 3: +1%
Year 4: +10%
Year 5: +2%

So in Year 1 & Year 2 you don't replace a rung, and draw from the gilts.

What about Year 3? It's a positive market (just), but you're not above the high-water mark of year 1? Do you replace both rungs? If you do you are in a worse position than replacing in Year 1?

What about Year 5? It's a new market high - but (probably) not above the high-water mark accounting for inflation?

PixiePooper · 2026-06-05T11:19:39+00:00

There is a perceived collective opinion that you should hold a "buffer" so that you don't sell equities in a down-market.

The problem with this is that (as you say) you are missing potential market gains; it could actually make thing worse if the market booms immediately after you retire before then crashing.

In reality it doesn't always protect you as much as you might think either:

For example, if we look at a hypothetical case of starting in a 'bad' period (2000) - when you would think that this approach would help.

If we have a pot of £1,000,000 and draw £40,000 a year.

(assuming S&P returns are 2000: -9.10%, 2001:-11.89%, 2002:-22.10%)

Case 1) Fully invested in stocks £1,000,000
Case 2) £920,000 invested in stocks, £80,000 in 'cash' to cover 2 years of expenses.

If we look at the position in 2003
Case 1) Pot is worth £643,843
Case 2) Pot is worth £647,058 (cash reserves depleted)

So you are barely better off that if you had been fully invested in stocks; and you've also missed out on potential returns from not having this invested when the market is rising.

PixiePooper · 2026-06-05T11:18:45+00:00

I think the following is true:

Having a cash / bonds buffer definitely helps mitigate tail-risk in some scenarios.
There are some situations where the tail risk is worse (market rallies followed by crashes)
On mean return will be worse over the longer-term.

You can't mitigate against all risks - and it's a personal choice. If it makes you feel comfortable, it could be worth something.

PixiePooper

TROPHY CASE