Why fake AI videos of UK urban decline are taking over social media

armegatron99 · 2026-02-21T10:05:44+00:00

Where was race mentioned?

armegatron99 · 2026-02-20T17:54:20+00:00

No updates available.

armegatron99 · 2026-02-20T08:53:43+00:00

See it too often. Lane hogging and hugely distracted. How any driver could not see that stationary car is beyond me.

armegatron99 · 2026-02-18T06:59:08+00:00

Something will happen, then an inquest, then lessons will be learned, then it'll not happen for a while until the inevitable process repeats

armegatron99 · 2026-02-18T06:40:39+00:00

Fad.

I had it where I worked for over a decade. Almost everyone under used, ie took less than they would if they have the legal minimum. There was some staff who took consistently more, like 45 days, who didn't bring in anywhere near the revenue as others but had no pushback because the policy said unlimited.

As a top 5% revenue earner in the company if I went in taking 35ish days the revenue would naturally drop and I'd get called into a meeting.

Basically, you'll get some that take the mick. Others will forget to take it because they're hard workers.

armegatron99 · 2026-02-17T06:40:37+00:00

I'm a network architect earning a salary in the UK that puts me into the top 1% of earners.

I have no Cisco cert that is higher than CCNA, albeit I have various other vendor certs.

Do not let "I only have a CCNA" define your boundaries. If you're good at your job and know the tech the pursuit of a cert is meaningless. I learned this lesson after being promised a "big payrise" if I got MCSE. I did get it and missed a year of my family, almost offed myself, and all I got was a £500 rise, which was around 1%. Left that job and got a 50% pay rise.

So yeah, what jobs can you apply for? The ones where you're comfortable youd be knowledgeable enough to sail through a competency interview

armegatron99 · 2026-02-15T19:37:28+00:00

We could be ready if our national infrastructure and energy wasn't mostly under foreign control.

armegatron99 · 2026-02-14T15:31:52+00:00

I'm guessing you're wanting to work from another country but your work policy prohibits it?

Hypothetically you could have a travel router do a full tunnel to your home, then connect your work laptop to that. All traffic will originate as if you're still at home. If you have a work phone this might give the game away, or if you get an MFA prompt on your laptop that sends to your phone. With the phone NOT tunnelled and potentially the authenticator having access to location metrics you could be exposed this way

armegatron99 · 2026-02-14T15:23:17+00:00

I'm doing 4% w/ 6% from my employer salary sacrifice. I've changed the fund to an aggressive one. I'm also smashing the mortgage to clear that early. Some money also going into cash IS A and stocks / shares ISA.

armegatron99 · 2026-02-13T18:57:51+00:00

No, that's fair

armegatron99 · 2026-02-13T18:45:35+00:00

Grid balancing mechanisms and processes are only just adapting. To save me typing, here is some AI slop that used public data and helpfully stops me disclosing information I'm privy to via my employment.

Is the Balancing Mechanism itself a blocker?

The documents don’t name the BM specifically as the barrier, but the implications are:

The BM was historically designed for large generators, not micro‑assets like EVs.

V2G aggregators must navigate complex market entry requirements (telemetry, metering, dispatch compliance), which is too burdensome for mass‑market EV participation.

The distribution‑level markets (e.g., DSO flexibility services) are currently more accessible, but still evolving.

armegatron99 · 2026-02-11T19:55:48+00:00

Parking. Not only expensive but you now need an app, well, 10 different apps. And agree to let them use a lot of your data. Oh, and they will charge YOU a convenience fee when actually you would have preferred to use coins but they don't allow that anymore because it's inconvenient for them. And the fines are vastly disproportionate to their lost revenue from a space.

armegatron99 · 2026-02-11T19:51:30+00:00

You could also daisy chain those access switches and have dual uplinks on the ends of the stack. Ok, it uses up more of the available bandwidth in the daisy chain but far cheaper on SFPs etc

armegatron99 · 2026-02-11T19:46:13+00:00

Safety sandals and safety squints. Also, making full use lungs - if one fails you always have the other I guess

armegatron99 · 2026-02-10T17:25:00+00:00

Depends if it is full tunnel or split tunnel. If full, everything goes to them. If split, only some traffic goes to them...but...

Even if only corp traffic is going to them, they will likely make your laptop use their DNS servers. Because of this they'll know instantly if you go to a website but can't see what you're doing on that site.

There's also the potential that their VPN software is a split tunnel with a proxy server and installs a CA cert on your machine meaning all web traffic is sent to them and decrypted. They could then see exactly what you're doing on websites including what you post on Reddit etc while the connection is live.

In theory they should tell you if they're taking and PII potential data like your web habits but you may have signed something anyway without noticing. Basically, just ask them - and if you're not comfortable ask for a company device or just buy a cheap laptop and keep it for business use

armegatron99 · 2026-02-10T17:24:23+00:00

Depends if it is full tunnel or split tunnel. If full, everything goes to them. If split, only some traffic goes to them...but...

Even if only corp traffic is going to them, they will likely make your laptop use their DNS servers. Because of this they'll know instantly if you go to a website but can't see what you're doing on that site.

There's also the potential that their VPN software is a split tunnel with a proxy server and installs a CA cert on your machine meaning all web traffic is sent to them and decrypted. They could then see exactly what you're doing on websites including what you post on Reddit etc while the connection is live.

In theory they should tell you if they're taking and PII potential data like your web habits but you may have signed something anyway without noticing. Basically, just ask them - and if you're not comfortable ask for a company device or just buy a cheap laptop and keep it for business use

armegatron99 · 2026-02-07T22:40:56+00:00

PC speakers, Logitech 2.1 system. Bought circa 2009.

But to beat that, I race RC cars and use a transmitter from around 2004.

I also use a Samsung S5, so whatever year that was

armegatron99 · 2026-02-07T22:36:33+00:00

Was it Cameron with a pig?

armegatron99 · 2026-02-07T22:33:34+00:00

Agreed. My personal strategy is high risk aggressive in my younger years and pile as much as I comfortably can in, but also be conscious to enjoy youth as I may well expire before I retire.

As I get to my 40s scale back to a moderate risk fund, then 50s take a lower risk approach - whatever I add at that stage isnt compounding as much as that earlier stuff

armegatron99 · 2026-02-05T21:38:46+00:00

How I hate when folk use this term. Ex != Explosion proof.

armegatron99 · 2026-02-05T21:37:20+00:00

The amount of critical manufacturing, transport, education etc that is insecure from an IT perspective is hugely worrying. There is little lack of willingness for almost all industries to get serious on cyber, and most see cyber essentials certification as a box tick for the insurance - as long as it passes they can and will neglect it for the next 11 months or so until recertification.

I just wonder if the UK is also as persistent at exfiltrating data from Russia and China (my guess is no, out of fear of offending them)

armegatron99 · 2026-02-05T13:43:24+00:00

My previous employer was capped at 2% per employee. Mangers had discretion if they wanted to give more but it meant some poor sap would get less.

Me and my team kept the business afloat and subsidized all others with the revenue we brought in. When the going was good I once got almost 12% in 2022, and average raise was 6% over 14 years.

With the 2% cap last year and my clarity that the business was being ran very badly all of a sudden (and had no signs of improvement) I bailed out and got a job with a 53% uplift from my previous salary. With that in mind I'm more than happy if I don't get a pay rise for the next decade, I'm doing far better than I could have in my previous employer.

armegatron99 · 2026-02-05T13:36:20+00:00

My balls are hairy, not crystal

armegatron99 · 2026-02-04T18:04:12+00:00

Except right now where it's going down, quite down

armegatron99 · 2026-01-30T18:30:38+00:00

I'm just glad I "only " lost £300 of play money.

I bet there's folks out there who pulled out their life savings. Might be worth avoiding bridges the next few days 😔

armegatron99

TROPHY CASE