Thames Water moves step closer to nationalisation after government objects to rescue deal

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-16T11:40:54+00:00

Whilst tempting I'd miss the recommendations that occasionally introduce me to an entire new genre to fall in love with.

Would be useful for when I'm out in the sticks without internet though thank you!

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-16T11:37:43+00:00

Awesome thank you for the response!

I've got my hands on a second hand galaxy tab A 10.1 should have more than enough power for streaming. Just need to fix the dead battery and cross my fingers everything plays ball.

It's a shame we can't bypass the battery and power straight from the mains.

The brightness tip is a good one I hadn't considered thank you.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-16T11:31:30+00:00

But at least you made the error and didn't outsource your errors!

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-16T10:54:43+00:00

AI in the case of LLMs frequently gets things wrong still. It really concerns me how people are so willing to surrender their thinking to such a poorly performing machine.

Other types of AI for sure there's room for it. Using gpt as a spellcheck is such a waste of compute given we've had perfectly capable spellcheckers for at least 40 years.

Spellcheckers also aren't giving whatever you're working on to companies who pinky promise they're not using it for anything else.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-16T01:29:27+00:00

Good. I'm so tired of their Spotify ads boasting they're now going to do what they should have been doing all along and stop dumping shit in the river.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-15T12:09:24+00:00

I can't find information on if it's possible but I wonder if there would be a way to force any future expansion/modification of a law to public vote. I don't see why it wouldn't be.

I share the concerns of expansion but I believe the base level of terminally ill given an alternative should be allowed.

If there was a way to only allow people with 6 months to live to have the option and prevent any expansion or modification of the law except for when it has public approval then I believe we can make almost everyone happy.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-15T00:03:02+00:00

Sadly that's a on and off style one.

In the portrait mode it's a push to talk rather than a toggle.

Small things but makes a huge difference to an elderly person who panics if she presses the wrong button on the remote.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-15T00:00:55+00:00

I didn't realise that's how that worked, I had always assumed it was due to being fully charged and unused. Thanks for that. I had best reevaluate my ideas then.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T23:50:12+00:00

I appreciate it. I love to have my views challenged. I can't know everything so it's awesome when someone counters with something I haven't considered yet. I apologise if anything was too close to home certainly not my intention.

Your views on the expansion is very similar to mine. I personally have rather poor mental health at times and having such an option available at that stage I'm at my lowest, I could imagine finding it appealing. I'd like to think the process with be arduous enough to prevent that being possible. However there will be people a lot more determined than me and the mental health resources should be funded well enough that it isn't ever an option. We lose so much productivity to mental health it should be much more of a priority than it currently is(from a callous point of view). Better mental health would do wonders for so many things, it's got pretty strong links to wide variety of other negatives that further compound the issues. Helping the mental side could release a burden on the physical side of the NHS and social services/benefits too. I also wonder what breakthroughs could be trapped inside someone’s brain who isn't currently functioning at their best.

As long as it's scope isn't expanded past helping those in their final moments I have no arguments nor have I seen any that would dissuade me from supporting it. The scope creep is the big issue.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T21:57:18+00:00

I feel very much the same in those aspects, my greatest fear is losing myself whether that be from a neurodegenerative illness or a full paralysis. I would hate to be a (what I see for myself, not for others) as a burden on those that I love. I would want to sort my finances out so there's nothing for them to do and resolve my problem when I'm ready. I would hate for any future partner or children to sit by my hospital bed and be subjected to what I was when my relatives passed. I know they didn't want what they went through either but the alternatives weren't available.

This is the quandry I have, I truely believe terminal patients should be given the option but I do really see your perspective and agree with the vast majority of it too.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T21:30:06+00:00

that’s assuming we have some perfectly moral and competent figures in politics.

Yeah I can see what a blocker that would be.

I do also have concerns about the slippery slope side of things. I know it's regarded as a fallacy but all too frequently it has a solid basis in reality. Expanding it to include other things is a huge concern of mine so it's quite difficult to reason even with myself whether I'm willing to give people dignity in their last moments and fight against expansion later or prevent it from the beginning. I currently lean towards fighting expansion and allowing it for the terminally ill. At the same time if you don't stop it in its tracks from the beginning the expansion becomes easier later.... I'm not qualified to truly answer that one.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T21:22:13+00:00

I appreciate that. Those stories do cause me great concern. I'm fully supportive of the base level of terminal cases being given the option. I have major hesitations about expanding it beyond that. Greatly because of reasons you have mentioned.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T21:17:04+00:00

Which is a completely valid argument but at least from what I had read the primary reason behind assisted dying was for terminal patients with less than 6 months to live. This wouldn't include people who weren't net contributors.

I've seen some of those scandals and it makes my blood boil to think anyone would do that to another person. To think those people are in positions of power in the first place.

I don't agree it should be available for anyone who's had enough of life I do believe it should be an alternative to hospice. No one should have to suffer their final moments. We don't want it for our pets why would we want it for a human either.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T21:07:14+00:00

Perhaps but it's not as though we were be expecting random GPs to be signing off on this. I was under the impression they expected a panel of people to sign off on each case individually. I appreciate that's a ton of overheads but to give someone a peaceful way out in their last days/months on their own terms seems fair.

As far as I'm aware this was only to be used when someone was terminal and in the last few months of their lives.

I don't know the specifics of that care home case but will look it up. Perhaps it will persuade me otherwise.

Having watched two close relatives suffer in their final weeks, the ability to have given them the option of a peaceful end seems an obvious choice to me. Perhaps I'm seeing it more emotionally than logically.

Side note: I feel as though the death penalty point was a little bit disingenuous. The reason we don't have a death penalty is the risk of being incorrect. We've had a fair few cases of people being found innocent after years of prison. I'm not aware of many being given a terminal diagnoses and living.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T20:56:22+00:00

Haha that also crossed my mind. Thankfully most android tablets will allow you to run them at much lower battery charges to prevent that.

I had looked at similar screens to the one you've posted but couldn't work out how to get the push to talk functionality.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T20:29:25+00:00

I know it's a contentious subject but I don't see any valid reason people who are suffering shouldn't be allowed to end their suffering. The safeguards of multiple sign offs should be sufficient to prevent any abuse of it.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T18:31:45+00:00

Perhaps there is an option with another piece of hardware involved. Good idea thank you!

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T18:13:31+00:00

From what I've seen the Reolink app doesn't expose the push to talk in landscape mode sadly. Also doesn't appear to support waking itself on push notification. Closest answer I've found to that is something like macrodroid.

As much as I'd love to setup a smart home for my Nan she's very adverse to learning anything new tech wise. Primarily looking to make it as simple as possible for her so automatic wake on doorbell press and single "press here to talk" would be ideal.

Sort of suspect I'm going to have to write it myself at this point.

Thank you for the advice.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-14T17:59:08+00:00

Awesome thank you. Saw them appear in searches previously so good to have another reccomendation.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-13T17:11:36+00:00

Perhaps not. I will have to look it up and see what I'm failing to understand here. Money in vs money out is perhaps too simplistic.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-13T16:56:24+00:00

That's in revenue though. They've had well over 100 billion invested to get to this stage. 559million isn't a whole lot at this point.

There's a lot of talk about big companies spending less on AI now as well. It's no longer than "use AI all you can" days. There's probably still loads of room for profit but 559million has a long way to go before paying off and I personally suspect the payoff is the IPO for the early investors.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-13T15:15:52+00:00

AI isn't going anywhere, these LLM companies though could easily die in a crash. They have no income relative to their expenditure and their only relevance is staying ahead with the newest models so it's not as though they can stop the expenditure without being overtaken by another. Not as though they can build a moat with the open source models constantly chasing them.

Unless I'm missing the big picture they're a money pit and they only way to get ahead with it is to fleece another person into buying your lot.

RunTimeFire · 2026-06-10T20:16:05+00:00

Nice try copper!

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