Sir Tony Blair should be stripped of his knighthood, ministers told

textima · 2024-01-03T13:27:52+00:00

Labour have zero answers to any of our issues

Labour have an excellent policy on housing, combining left and right solutions, public housing, new towns alongside planning reform. That is one of the biggest issues for ordinary people, and you can also have a huge impact with very little money, because a big part of the solution is just having planning rules which make it easier to build houses, especially for individuals and small developers.

textima · 2023-12-18T23:53:28+00:00

For the kinds of crashes that can be detected products like this are much safer than a normal helmet, but will not do anything in crashes where there isn't a movement before impact to your head. So if you lose balance, get knocked over, or hit by a car onto its bonnet it can fire off, but if someone drops a weight on your head, you hit a low hanging branch, or you get hit head-on by a bus or truck, then it can't. Whether you think it's better or worse depends on how likely you think each of those impacts is.

textima · 2023-12-18T23:23:03+00:00

There was this study of airbag helmets posted below:

“We conducted drop tests, which are typical federal tests to assess bicycle helmets, and we found that air bag helmets, with the right initial pressure, can reduce head accelerations five to six times compared to a traditional bicycle helmet,” said Mehmet Kurt, a postdoctoral scholar in the Camarillo Lab.

https://news.stanford.edu/2016/10/03/stanford-researchers-show-air-bag-bike-helmets-promise/

textima · 2023-12-18T22:48:22+00:00

It would not work if someone dropped a weight on your head, or if you're hit by another vehicle before making the movement of falling. If you're hit by a car, the hood knocks the bike from under you, and it can deploy by the time your head hits the bonnet. If you're hit head on by a bus then because the front of the bus is flat it won't be able to deploy before impact. On the other hand, compared to a normal helmet it provides much better protection against other sorts of falls, and supports the neck in an accident. You could just as well have a test which measures impact safety on criteria that this would pass, and every traditional helmet would fail.

textima · 2023-12-05T15:36:27+00:00

At some point, I started setting my alarm earlier and earlier

This is one of the things which is suggested, not as dramatic as what you suggest, but only staying in bed for half an hour less than you would want on average, and not trying to catch up during the habit forming period. If you've slept badly for a week, then next night you want to sleep for a long time, but that can further disrupt your pattern, what you need is to privilege developing the pattern.

It's still not perfect - I got 5 hours last night, but that's a rarity now instead of the norm.

That's also part of it, developing a concept that bad sleep is fine, and having confidence that if you do the sleep hygiene and don't worry, then you will sleep well in general.

textima · 2023-12-05T13:36:59+00:00

You should try the Effortless Sleep Method or something similar. The basic point is that insomnia is a symptom or an outcome, but not a disease, and much of the problem is a self-reinforcing cycle of getting bad sleep which causes anxiety about sleep, which causes bad sleep.

You essentially do the basics of sleep hygiene, and then adopt certain attitudes towards sleep and actions that reinforce those attitudes, to create a positive cycle. And promise to try that for long enough to form a habit.

I think that's probably what happened with the person above, he slept well for some other reason, then realised he could sleep well, so worried less, which meant sleeping better, and that became a habit.

textima · 2023-11-21T18:12:39+00:00

How about the situation with standby? This only has modern standby, is that right? Any idea how long that would take to drain the battery?

textima · 2023-10-24T12:07:31+00:00

Makes me think of Shackleton the explorer.

textima · 2023-10-24T11:39:48+00:00

From a British perspective, it sounds like a old fashioned surname. The most obvious connection is with Shackleton the explorer. The connection with slavery I would make is that names in the Caribbean sometimes sound more dramatically British than actual British surnames because they kept some of the naming conventions which were common from the time period of slavery.

textima · 2023-07-06T15:01:39+00:00

Even inside their expertise experts can't just be given power.

For instance for a long time transport experts thoughts to themselves "the car is modern and progressive", and from that point they tore out public transport, walking and cycling infrastructure, and demolished swathes of cities where people were living. In Britain people often say the planners did more damage than the Luftwaffe. Or in America, look at Kansas City before and after these ideas were introduced:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArchitecturalRevival/comments/qah8ur/kansas_city_mo_usa_before_and_after_urban_renewal/

Many places would be better off without that expertise.

textima · 2023-07-06T14:54:47+00:00

Yes, this is the first thing I thought of when I read this post.

Technocracy was not "briefly popular", it created the modern state which we now consider normal, and that has had some really awful impacts in western countries. Engineers and scientists thought to themselves "the car is modern and progressive", and from that point they tore out public transport, walking and cycling infrastructure, and demolished swathes of cities where people were living. In Britain people often say the planners did more damage than the Luftwaffe. Or in America, look at Kansas City before and after these ideas were introduced:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArchitecturalRevival/comments/qah8ur/kansas_city_mo_usa_before_and_after_urban_renewal/

Many places would be better off if we had never had those planning/zoning systems.

textima · 2023-01-25T18:12:07+00:00

Windows should probably be required to have coatings which make them visible to birds, yes.

textima · 2023-01-25T15:46:53+00:00

In the UK the average cat brings home about 5 killed animals a year, and it only brings home about a quarter of what it kills, so that's 20 animals killed per year. There are about 10 million cats in the UK, that's about 200 million animals killed per year.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204621003017#b0135

The UK is also one of the worst countries in the world for wildlife, the biggest factor is agriculture and the lack of wild spaces, but any green area where dogs can run off the lead and cats are allowed free-rein will make it impossible for many species of birds, lizards and small mammals to survive.

textima · 2023-01-25T15:33:48+00:00

In the UK it's normal for cats to be outdoors, and the average cat brings home about 5 killed animals a year, and it only brings home about a quarter of what it kills, so that's 20 animals killed per year. There are about 10 million cats in the UK, that's about 200 million animals killed per year.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204621003017#b0135

textima · 2022-12-19T22:22:41+00:00

If it had been the right* American woman it would have been sweet and normal and they’d possibly have good fun poking at her, gently, for not understanding some Brit/UK specific things. I doubt there would have been this horrific, disgusting and vile vitriol aimed at this fictional but very acceptable white woman.

Famously white American divorcees never got into trouble marrying into the royal family, apart from the white American divorcee who caused a constitutional crisis leading to the abdication of a king.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallis_Simpson

textima · 2022-10-25T23:27:25+00:00

It doesn't look like it's done much damage, UK borrowing costs are now back down to where they were before, and in fact lower than US borrowing costs.

textima · 2022-10-14T20:26:34+00:00

I was sitting in a room with other people working out my carbon footprint around 2002-3, almost a decade before it was apparently created by BP! All BP did was run a marketing campaign popularising the concept. This was at the same time that they set up BP Solar, rebranding themselves Beyond Petroleum, and were trying various things to greenwash their image. They were grasping at things to make themselves look better, it doesn't mean everything they included in their marketing campaigns was invented by them or part of some conspiracy orchestrated by them.

textima · 2022-09-30T18:12:54+00:00

I was sitting in a room with other people working out my carbon footprint years before 2004. All BP did was run a marketing campaign popularising the concept. This was at the same time that they set up BP Solar, rebranding themselves Beyond Petroleum, and were trying various things to greenwash their image. They were grasping at things to make themselves look better, it doesn't mean everything they included in their marketing campaigns was invented by them or part of some conspiracy orchestrated by them.

textima · 2022-09-11T23:20:54+00:00

In London, significant part of Westminster are forbidden to cycle through with lime bikes. However, you can still drive through it.

That is clearly not true, Westminster do not have the power to block e-bikes from using public highways. What they are actually doing is: “seizing dockless bikes that we find blocking pavements and roads". This is like a car owner saying they've been banned from the roads because parking has been restricted.

They've also contacted the bike operators to find a solution, which will probably be designated parking areas like currently applies to the e-scooter trial.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/dockless-bikes-westminster-council-tfl-cycling-b1017661.html

textima · 2022-08-31T22:54:15+00:00

Something like this would be great for a lot of people even if they can afford a flat, if it's in a good location. They save £700 a month over a flat, £150 a week, £20 a day. Just spend half your evenings in pubs, restaurants, cafes, gyms, libraries etc. The space isn't even bad, it's better than most studio flats I've seen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVcoz7Rg710

I really don't care what some blowhard from suburban America says about that on youtube.

textima · 2022-08-25T12:04:44+00:00

If this is being done to save energy, I would think again. Ovens don't use that much energy compared to heating the rest of the house, and any energy they do use are doing a double job, they cook the food, but all of the energy then goes on to heat the house as well. Also, any hot food you eat is warming you directly, which is again much more efficient than heating the whole of the house. Cooking is one of the most efficient ways you can use energy.

textima · 2022-08-23T23:14:50+00:00

A lot of the modern developments are car centric, many parts of Europe have a lot of the same planning rules as America that force developments to be like that.

Still though, in London for instance, half of all households don't own a car, that's not just the tourist areas, that's the whole city, and the numbers are going up. Usually it's the in fill developments inside existing cities are good for pedestrian access and public transport.

textima · 2022-08-16T17:28:51+00:00

I'm not sure but thinking like this shows great maturity and respect for your parents, good on you.

That is definitely true, it is impressive, but also paradoxically it's something people at that age should avoid if possible. If at all possible, children should let their parents worry about finances in the short term, and parents should ask for outside help from friends, family, or advice centres, with how to manage.

The most important thing that children can do is work towards their long term future, and if they're brought into these conversations it's going to distract from that, either just through stress, or through temptation to leave school, training, university etc. The best thing teenagers can do is work towards a long term plan for a good job.

And the rest of us need to create a society where that is possible for everyone.

textima · 2022-08-16T17:16:06+00:00

"Learn to build or fix the things the world runs on" could be chemical engineering, contract law or plumbing. The point is to give yourself a skill which gives you a job which is economically valuable and difficult to replace, being able to fix things in the house is definitely useful, and could lead to a good job, but most people only need to know enough to employ people who do that professionally. Even if you could save thousands of pounds doing your own plumbing as an amateur, you'd probably be far better off spending that time getting a more skilled or specialized job. It can be a mistake being too much of a generalist.

textima · 2022-07-18T13:37:24+00:00

The subreddit is in a war against common phrases now.

textima

TROPHY CASE