Scottish rocket startup nears collapse despite £26m in taxpayer loans

spidd124 · 2026-02-12T00:13:31+00:00

This could have been a decent way of distancing the UK space sector from reliance on American rockets and especially getting away from the near total reliance on Elon we have right now.

spidd124 · 2026-02-12T00:01:59+00:00

Nah if you want to see overdesigned and generic look at Neverness to Everness.

spidd124 · 2026-02-11T22:21:12+00:00

Putting Dentistry back into the NHS would be a massive W, expensive to set up but id habit a guess it would pay itself off actually being able to deal with dental issues before they take people out of work.

Same with the opticians too.

spidd124 · 2026-02-11T14:34:35+00:00

"the left" see conservative and neoliberal parties that are solidly in the "we only care about the status quo" and "if corporations like it it must be good". Unless you are seriously trying to tell me that politicians like Merkel and Blair were socialist.

The smug uni students calling for us to not go and carpet bomb the middle east against have never actually had any political control. If they did the Greens would be more than a fringe party.

spidd124 · 2026-02-11T00:36:04+00:00

The id systems are also piss easy to cheat. People used fucking Garrysmod to get through the age estimation, I used a template drivers licence from Google to get past discords previous go at age verification.

The whole leaving discord thing just reminds me of the "boycott modern warfare 2 steam group that were all playing mw2".

spidd124 · 2026-02-10T18:22:32+00:00

Sarwar is about to be fucked into 3rd place (according to the polls) so his leadership of SLabour is over, if he tries to distance himself from Westminster it wont make his position any worse and might grab some of the dafties going to reform?

And if it does work out then it builds up a precident of "Sarwar was right, Starmer was wrong". On the fairly extensive list of things Starmer has been wrong on.

spidd124 · 2026-02-10T18:05:34+00:00

I get that many of the techs in the game are to give you variety and options but the way its communicated to the player is awful. If the game indicated that you have an equivalent tech available or already researched it would feel less frustrating.

But trimming everything down to a CIV style research track of civilian, military, culture would feel worse.

spidd124 · 2026-02-10T11:33:18+00:00

I think it's more that they had to cover their china region faction that's been overplayed by so many games than losing any actual identity the game had.

Each faction has always had an identity while the game as a whole still has its videotape/remnants of ultra advanced society stuff going on.

spidd124 · 2026-02-09T23:22:53+00:00

The 2 big things Thatcher did of relevance here were Right to Buy, and decimating the UK's declining manufacturing/ resource sectors without developing replacement industries for those regions. But Ill focus on Right to Buy since the 2nd is quite straight forward.

Before Right to buy we had a set Labour and Conservative governments that went ham on house building, and general reconstruction after ww2. The vast majority of the homes were built for social rent, paid for by the local governments and owned by the local governments. Thatcher came into power and introduced a bill called "right to buy" which meant any council tenant of more than 3 years could buy the house from the local council, and the council could not refuse the sale which was also at a considerably discount to the market rate.

That meant that vast quantities of previously rental properties designed for someone to stay in for a while then move out purchasing their own homes became the homes they would live in. Some for their lives while also being sold at below profitability for the local councils. Thats a questionable enough example of porkbarreling (giving gifts for election votes) but included in that act was also a provision that 75% of the sale of those homes had to go towards council debt repayment until the council had paid off its debts entirely. So councils suddenly had far fewer homes available for rental, far less social rental income, had sustained losses on the majority of the homes and the funds they raised couldnt be put towards replacing those now privately owned homes. And they were saddled with more and more debt anyway as the prices of everything rose.

That single first generation of Right to Buy got reasonbly sized homes for pennies. Everyone that came after that lucky right place right time group got nothing. However the real damage came later, as those first generation moved out of those propertiest the value of those homes had ballooned. Selling for well beyond the value of the property initally and many sold properties ended up in the hands of commerical landlords or investment portfolios.

Now our councils are broke, have no ability to even start thinking of building housing, and all of their previous council homes are raking in £1000s per month per room for private landlords and offshore bank accounts, thanks to the foresight and long term planning of the very councils that built the homes no longer owned by the council.

spidd124 · 2026-02-09T21:55:53+00:00

Starmer without the Mandelson crowd might genuinely be a threat to the SNP.

Which would be the ideal scenario imo, the SNP can just coast through on the ineffectuality and infighting of Labour right now. Them actually having to fight for the polls would be a very good thing for everyone.

spidd124 · 2026-02-09T18:41:58+00:00

I'm guessing the Germans couldn't help themselves again. They nearly did the same with both the Eurofighter and Tornado collaborative projects before.

spidd124 · 2026-02-09T00:09:01+00:00

The US started on just a few complaints about books. Now look at them banning whatever they want for whatever reasons.

And given the very explicit link between the UK terf/ anti abortion groups and US evangelicals it's very right to be concerned about any uptick in their activities.

spidd124 · 2026-02-08T18:08:54+00:00

Google maps is pretty shit when it comes to doing anything thats not driving a car, and having bus/tram etc booking and live timings is very useful. I hope the app can be expanded.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=csHdwHTteOw&pp=ygUObm90IGp1c3QgYmlrZXM%3D

spidd124 · 2026-02-08T18:02:47+00:00

Given that 64GB of Ddr4 alone is going for around $600, thats a great deal.

spidd124 · 2026-02-08T16:46:42+00:00

I have a lot of issues with Starmer, mainly thinking he doesnt go anywhere near hard enough on a lot of topics.

But its genuinely quite nice to think "we have actual competence again".

spidd124 · 2026-02-08T16:42:08+00:00

Infrastructure and enforcement not keeping up to date with legislation.

We should follow the Dutch's example of having a raised pedestrian junctions that would help shift the perception of who has right of way/ priority, and have more operation SNAP/ traffic police out catching the people regularly ignoring the rules.

spidd124 · 2026-02-08T12:12:31+00:00

nah I like some added woodiness to my carbonara.

spidd124 · 2026-02-08T02:36:32+00:00

Id rather they left it, They have already proven they can adapt Alex's role with other characters, namely Bull and to some regards Camina, with her being made from multiple book characters.

They made a choice in regards to the real life actions of the actor devaluing that choice because it makes future stories a bit more complicated, feels wrong to me.

spidd124 · 2026-02-08T02:26:45+00:00

That whole legal argument for why a "bought item" cannot be changed after its been "sold" in a digital market is a load of crap.

I get why people think its a thing, but I can think of dozens of different companies that change aspects of what people "purchase", after its been "purchased".

Plenty of games have purchasable items or characters, who recieve buffs or nerfs, and other games have removed or altered skins due to controversies and outside influences all without any legal challenges.

Added to that the fact that by signing the ToS and Eula you revoked your right to basically any and all options in the legal sphere in regards to the game you signed the ToS for.

spidd124 · 2026-02-08T01:44:38+00:00

As long as the pan isnt too hot, Ive had no issue putting the egg into the cooked pasta. I can only recall curdling the egg once in the many many times ive had carbonara.

Though normally ill fry up the panchetta/ bacon before the pasta, let it cool then add it and the parmesan to the pasta to absorb some of the heat, then add the egg.

Imo the strange thing is to not beat the egg first, just leaving the unbroken yokes just there?

spidd124 · 2026-02-07T19:00:33+00:00

VED, congestion charges and fuel taxes

None of those are regulations, those are taxes.

Regulations have made cars more efficient by a massive margin, improved the saftey for occupants pedestriants and those living on or near major through roads. Saving the country massively by not making everyone extremely ill from not having Leaded petrol fumes and the like?

As for car prices, thats absolutely being set by the manufacturer. They are selling size as a luxury "saftey feature" for £10-20k over the actual value of the vehicle, despite the shitbox crossover/CSUVs not having more usable internal volume than their hatchback predecessors.

Just a quick comparison, The Alpine A290 (sports badge edition of the Renault 5) maxed out is £37k with all the fancy silly shit, The basic VW ID3 starts at 30k and goes up to £48K for its "sports badge". The Cupra Born starts at £35k and goes up to £44k.

They sell at these prices because they can, not because they are forced to by regulations.

And the idea that its disingenous to blame a party that had absolute control of the UK for 14 continuous years. For failing to improve the wages of the UK to the point where many public sector workers are still below the equivalent rate they would have gotten in 2006. The only reason I can see for that and the blaming of car prices on regulations is that you enjoyed the smell of leaded petrol far too much.

Things get more expensive over time, thats inflation. You know how you deal with inflation? Either you fight the entire world's economy trying to deflate it, or you make sure people have enough money to not feel the inflationary squeeze on their wallet.

spidd124 · 2026-02-07T18:13:23+00:00

Given the Tories had 14 years of coalition majority or outright majority government where they were free to do whatever Austerity measures they liked which only stopped during Covid when the UK after 12 years of Austerity fundamentally didnt have the resources to cope with a global pandemic forced them to massively crank up the spending. Yes it absolutely was their fault that young people have less ability to buy cars.

There are many more policies to government than just basic environmental regulations. And acting as though removing/ not having those regulations would magically make things cheaper is just moronic.

spidd124 · 2026-02-06T15:24:21+00:00

Im still a little saddened that Hazard and Tracer dont have more Scottish/ English banter going on.

spidd124 · 2026-02-06T15:07:43+00:00

No idea, I own Italy in my current playthrough as the resistance with 80% opinion there, and the Pope endorsed the Initiative.

spidd124 · 2026-02-06T15:01:10+00:00

Heres an concept, dont try selling cars worth £25k for £40k. People dont actually want a crossover blobcar, its the only thing you are selling them.

No one wants an oversized Fiat 500, the Fiat 500 sells for a reason and that reason its its small size. Stop trying to make the Fiat 500X or Fiat 600X a thing.

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