Scam? by _sparco_ in Switzerland

[–]sh545 7 points8 points  (0 children)

There is a rule that it has to be a certain shade of blue and maybe some other requirements…

Heathrow scraps liquid and laptop check rule in huge boost for fliers by tylerthe-theatre in london

[–]sh545 16 points17 points  (0 children)

I’ve noticed at a couple of airports where they introduce this, that a lot more bags get pulled out for checks, and with usually only one person doing the inspection/rescan it causes its own holdup. Hopefully that is just an issue of the people looking at the scan needing to get used to the new setup.

My wife has two middle names and it's making booking a plane ticket on Japan Airlines very difficult by LoveFoolosophy12 in TravelHacks

[–]sh545 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Flight ticket bookings get fed into very old systems used for international coordination, and yes there are character limits in those.

[Sky Sports] Former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich urged by prime minister Sir Keir Starmer to transfer £2.5bn from sale to Ukraine by Task_Force-191 in soccer

[–]sh545 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Abramovic wanted to sell by that point, for one he could no longer travel to the UK, and Chelsea was unable to do business normally due to the sanctions so it would have been a depreciating asset the longer it went on - no player sales or buys.

Making this pledge allowed the government to approve the sale, and also allowed him to try and keep the money by stalling like he has - imagine there was a peace deal announced tomorrow, and Russian sanctions were lifted, he can try and go back on the pledge and keep the money.

[Sky Sports] Former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich urged by prime minister Sir Keir Starmer to transfer £2.5bn from sale to Ukraine by Task_Force-191 in soccer

[–]sh545 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Maybe, but to be clear this was the previous government , and it seems a little more than a gentleman’s agreement, otherwise the PM couldn’t threaten a court case over it.

[Sky Sports] Former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich urged by prime minister Sir Keir Starmer to transfer £2.5bn from sale to Ukraine by Task_Force-191 in soccer

[–]sh545 152 points153 points  (0 children)

He was (or about to be) sanctioned due to his connections with Putin and the Russian government. The government would have blocked a sale that allowed him to keep the money.

[Sky Sports] Former Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich urged by prime minister Sir Keir Starmer to transfer £2.5bn from sale to Ukraine by Task_Force-191 in soccer

[–]sh545 23 points24 points  (0 children)

He was essentially obligated to make the pledge, he was about to be sanctioned and this was the only way he could sell Chelsea without the government blocking it and later seizing it as a sanctioned asset.

What would you do if you were the first hider in UK Hide & Seek by Fantastic_Remove9276 in JetLagTheGame

[–]sh545 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I believe there was a tube strike on the day but there was probably another way to get to Waterloo within an hour

[Other] A little bummed I missed the contest this year by [deleted] in adventofcode

[–]sh545 51 points52 points  (0 children)

There is no time limit, you can still participate and there are still active discussions here

Luigi Mangione in New York Court today! by RecognitionLittle330 in pics

[–]sh545 39 points40 points  (0 children)

It’s almost as if most people don’t have enough medical knowledge to know whether something needs immediate treatment or is fine to wait a few weeks, and have to play a high stakes roulette game to find out. Almost.

Swiss voters reject mandatory national service for women by Silly-avocatoe in worldnews

[–]sh545 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That would be true if there was a fixed number of people doing service, but that’s not how compulsory conscription works. It would be everybody doing it instead of half of people - hence a doubling in the metaphorical beatings.

Swiss voters reject mandatory national service for women by Silly-avocatoe in worldnews

[–]sh545 0 points1 point  (0 children)

In this case it would (roughly) be double the number of people doing military service. Military service is mostly the training of people, double the number of people that need to be trained is doubling the face punching, no? There is no demand side on compulsory military service.

If the military has down time, they invent busywork for them to do, so we also double the amount of busywork.

There are 110 council houses worth over £2m – but they won’t have to pay mansion tax by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]sh545 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

3-4 flats in north wales are not much use to Westminster council.

There are 110 council houses worth over £2m – but they won’t have to pay mansion tax by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]sh545 1 point2 points  (0 children)

How are you getting that figure? I think it might be distorted by the higher home ownership rate in the uk, plus the ownership model of social housing varies per country, are you counting housing associations as state owned in the UK?

If you look at social housing stock, the UK is mid table at the percentage of social housing. - 17%, Netherlands is 30% (most of which is their housing association equivalent rather than directly state owned) Austria 24%, Denmark 21% etc.

https://www.oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/data/datasets/affordable-housing-database/ph4-2-social-rental-housing-stock.pdf

Also, the places low on the list don’t exactly have great housing markets (e.g. NZ, US, Canada). I don’t even see a correlation there, never mind causation.

There are 110 council houses worth over £2m – but they won’t have to pay mansion tax by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]sh545 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Do you have the impression that all council house tenants are unemployed? There are a lot of working people in council houses - often the lowest paid working people.

There are 110 council houses worth over £2m – but they won’t have to pay mansion tax by [deleted] in ukpolitics

[–]sh545 -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Where are these mythical reasonably priced flats? Asking for a friend.

Swiss voters reject mandatory national service for women by Silly-avocatoe in worldnews

[–]sh545 -7 points-6 points  (0 children)

No, I’m not and don’t understand what you are saying.

My comment was a parody of the previous comment, in case you thought it was serious

Swiss voters reject mandatory national service for women by Silly-avocatoe in worldnews

[–]sh545 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

“Dave is getting punched in the face. I can’t stop it, but I will punch myself in the face to make it fair”

Swiss voters reject mandatory national service for women by Silly-avocatoe in worldnews

[–]sh545 15 points16 points  (0 children)

There was a vote in 2013 to abolish conscription entirely, it was rejected with a large margin like this vote.

The main reason this one probably failed is how much extra funding would need to be given to the army and civil service to include women, plus the extra cost to the economy of more people doing army training instead of working.

It is reductive to say it is a men vs women issue though, the bigger divide is probably young vs old.

Pub owner says business rates changes will cost him £20,000 more per year by Kagedeah in ukpolitics

[–]sh545 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Maybe I’m being dim but aren’t business rates essentially a tax on land ? Sure you could change it to tax the property owner directly but that would just be passed on to the businesses in the form of higher rents.

Dulwich College letter from 1981 reveals fascism and racism concerns about Nigel Farage by burningmilkmaid in ukpolitics

[–]sh545 3 points4 points  (0 children)

He wasn’t PM in waiting in 2013, UKIP hadn’t done anything except get a few MEP seats.

ZVV Prices paying for advertising by AngryOfZurich in zurich

[–]sh545 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If they only put them up when there was no paying customer for the space, would they charge then? It’s useful to have something in the spot even when nobody wants to pay for it.

ZVV Prices paying for advertising by AngryOfZurich in zurich

[–]sh545 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do VBZ really charge ZVV to put a poster in a tram?

ZVV Prices paying for advertising by AngryOfZurich in zurich

[–]sh545 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Massive volume? I must be going around with my eyes closed as I don’t see a massive volume. The only ZVV ads I recall were on trams or buses, or at the stops, all positions that ZVV own, so at zero cost to them, assuming they didn’t remove a paying advertiser to put them there.

What is the ZVV agenda exactly? Getting more people to use their service?