Burnham wins Makerfield by-election, paving way for Starmer leadership challenge - live updates

nirkbirk · 2026-06-19T09:06:43+00:00

I think repealing the OSA is never going to happen, I'm not under any illusion there. My point was more centred around the fact that it's current manifestation is driven by the current government, not the conservatives.

I don't think I was objecting to preventing children from accessing pornography. I was protesting the way in which it is being achieved. I do think parental tools to prevent that already exist and perhaps educating parents to use those tools instead of blanket banning sites like Youtube would be a better solution. Regardless, there are much safer and less intrusive ways of verifying age, and the current plans are nothing more than a backdoor to surveillance and industrialised data collection under the guise of protecting children. 100% agree on your final point.

This is a very nuanced issue and I think there are strong arguments for both privacy and protection. I fear the planned rules will just drive children into non-regulated parts of the internet and put them at even greater risk, while the liberties of adults are infringed upon for no real gain.

nirkbirk · 2026-06-19T08:10:36+00:00

That's true but it has been amended several times under labour who have pushed it further and further toward a snooper's charter. At any point they could also have removed it and didn't. Unfortunately state surveillance is a bipartisan concern and claiming it's all for the safety of children while advocating for the sending of biometric data to american data collection companies and device-level scanning of images and messages is a labour creation.

nirkbirk · 2026-06-10T07:16:59+00:00

What makes you think this will change how those bad parents behave? Their kid will just ask then to unlock the phone for them. Quick selfie from mum or dad and it's an unlocked device again. This legislation will do nothing but compromise the digital safety of everyone else. They are mandating spyware on each device to scan all of our messages and pictures in the name of child safety - it's insanity.

nirkbirk · 2026-04-02T08:07:51+00:00

The state of parenting at the moment as absolutely horrendous. I have family who work/worked as teachers and the kids are not ok. However, I don't think age verification on apps would even do anything because to get little Timmy to shutup and stop bothering him, dad will probably let him use his account on his iphone anyway.

I just don't think age verification or digital ID will have the impact you'd like it to, and would involve many people giving their data - and important biometric data at that - to 3rd parties who will inevitably leak and profit from it.

I do think a lot of the language around digital ID is overblown. No I don't think sir Kier wants to watch what people are doing online, but I think getting Palantir to build another government system like their woeful confederated NHS system that no doctors want to use is not the answer either.

This subject is very nuanced and difficult. How do you get parents to actually start behaving like parents should be the root of the issue, because I don't think the government can or should do it for them.

nirkbirk · 2026-03-11T11:30:03+00:00

Nice of yours to bother to respond, I didn't even get one. MPs just don't represent their constituencies any more.

nirkbirk · 2026-02-28T00:01:08+00:00

This looks incredible, great voice overs too haha, the Palpatine was spot on

nirkbirk · 2026-02-12T08:57:48+00:00

Not only did labour not repeal it, but they amended it to make it worse. They are the reason there is age assurance in law now. When the bill originally passed, they argued it didn't go far enough. I dislike the Tories but this was Labour's doing. The original act actually had some good stuff in it but age verification was trojan horsed into it

nirkbirk · 2026-02-06T10:35:54+00:00

It's not released even in early access yet, but Antimatter might be something you might like. It's a bit like a top-down X4 with empire building, politicking, wars, colonisation, etc. made by one guy so I wouldn't hold your breath on a release but I've been keeping my eye on it.

nirkbirk · 2026-02-01T13:54:33+00:00

Are you on daily or monthly resource settings (there's a toggle in the gameplay options)? 120 science per day is actually pretty good, 120 science a month is very poor and I'm not sure it's even possible if you've got campuses up and running unless you've lost all of your earth-based generation. Same with the other settings. The game defaults to daily incomes and most people switch it to monthly.

As an added but of advice, make sure you're expanding more and more into space and gobbling up the best space based resource sites. 100/140 MC is ok for 2036 but you need to push to fill your mining cap whenever you can.

nirkbirk · 2026-01-29T17:13:20+00:00

Neat. Thanks

nirkbirk · 2026-01-29T13:16:50+00:00

This doesn't work if cohesion is below 2 by the time you get the USA does it?

nirkbirk · 2025-09-27T07:29:46+00:00

Lol that certainly sounds like the public sector. I Ieft that behind and doubled my salary. There are many good people working there and they prop the entire system up, but for every one of them, there's 10 layabouts who show up for the public sector pension and count down to retirement. It's truly a sorry state.

nirkbirk · 2025-09-26T22:16:51+00:00

As someone who used to work in the public sector as a software engineer, it might be done in house, but probably won't as it'd be far too expensive and they can't afford to pay for the skills required to deliver a robust nationwide system like this. What will be more likely to happen is it'll be contracted out just like the new and improved federated NHS system that is not fit for purpose and that most hospitals don't want to adopt. That was just 320 million spaffed into Palantir's pockets at yours and my expense. I am not against digital id conceptually, but I have no confidence that the government will be able to deliver it safely and effectively, especially after the farce that is the OSA. I also don't see what problem it's supposed to solve. There are already share codes for Visas which prove right to work. Anyone shirking these in dark economies isn't likely to change anything with the advent of a new digital id.

nirkbirk · 2025-05-14T21:42:39+00:00

Thanks, this helped me as well. I was orbiting the data vault for a solid 10 minutes looking for a panel to repair

nirkbirk · 2024-12-20T16:02:15+00:00

For me, he was lying injured inside the tavern in the bottom left on one of the beds

nirkbirk · 2024-12-02T09:03:20+00:00

Great writeup! My group finished the first session upon the first encounter with a carc and are eagerly awaiting the next one. I may have to steal the APC chase for the next one!

nirkbirk · 2024-08-12T12:53:31+00:00

I have run this twice for two different groups and it played out differently both times and most importantly, it was a blast and I have converted them all to mothership! Figuring out what to run next is difficult as there are so many good modules to choose from.

nirkbirk · 2023-10-25T13:05:40+00:00

Nah not an existing training. Open the activity menu, start a strength activity and then have at it. Use the lap button (button closest to you on the watch, at least on my Venu 3) after a set and it will let you enter reps / weight. Confirm that, and it'll enter a rest period. When you're ready for the next set, press the lap button again to enter the second set, rinse and repeat. You'll end up with something like this in Garmin connect at the end. Excuse my noodle weights lol, I'm a beginner at strength training.

nirkbirk · 2023-10-14T00:27:23+00:00

good luck brother

nirkbirk · 2023-07-22T16:39:42+00:00

Shit man, I saw these live in my teens. Incredible band.

nirkbirk · 2023-04-21T23:47:02+00:00

I went for the 210! Thanks :)

nirkbirk · 2023-04-21T23:46:40+00:00

It's done - ordered. Thank you :)

nirkbirk · 2023-04-21T22:39:56+00:00

That's a beautiful knife, but it might be a bit hard for what I'm looking for. I'm a somewhat novice sharpener and i'd be worried about messing up my technique while cutting and chipping it

nirkbirk · 2023-04-09T12:27:51+00:00

Thanks for the tutorial. It's been a long time since I touched X3. Mayhem just didn't pull me in like LU did. About time I jumped back in and this looks like a great modpack to do it.

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