𝕁𝕦𝕤𝕥𝕚𝕟

Wow, in Greece at a beach bar, the waiters are so territorial and aggressive about who you’re ordering from and where you’re sitting. Making an issue of us as a family sitting at some loungers and some tables immediately behind because they’re covered by different people. Low-trust societies are a nightmare of simmering background hostility, even in what ought be a relaxing customer experience environment.

@Telegraph No Parliament can bind its successors.

Labour is to ban new oil and gas fields in Britain, making it far harder for any future government to reopen the North Sea. 🔗: telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/…

@eigenrobot Much like the Democratic Party is less democratic than the Republican Party in America, the Labour Party is way more internally despotic than the Conservatives, who have a formal mechanism for their parliamentary members to oust their own PM (the 1922 Committee).

out of curiosity, any chance he chooses the samson option and threatens to call new elections in response

@Sam_Dumitriu That article’s framing is ridiculous. EDF doesn’t “want” to do that!

To comply with Natural England’s demands, EDF will be forced to compulsory purchase farmland nearby and flood it. Unsurprisingly, locals don’t want this.

Natural England have decided that £700m spent protecting fish isn’t enough. They want EDF to do even more before they’ll let them switch the plant on. This will cause a big delay. Put simply, Natural England is a threat to our energy security. telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/…

@Pintdrinker @CromRedoubt It’s even more ridiculous: They’re Scottish raspberries, he’s just mad they have the Union Flag rather than Saltire on the packaging.

@CromRedoubt Won’t eat British strawberries but has no issue with abdi mohammed rape machine moving in the hotel across from the primary school

Scottish nationalists are a different breed

@Sine879012 @eigenrobot “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”

@eigenrobot Jesus (Hypothetically and canonically) was playing a different game: If you press the blue button, everyone is saved regardless of what they do. He also knew he wasn't actually going to die.

not to stir up controversy but im pretty sure jesus would have pressed the blue button

@danbarker Interesting choice of squirrel species. Doesn’t bode well.

I've been on the peripheries of a few campaigns like this. Usually it works roughly like the following: 1. The government puts pressure on firms to try and achieve something - eg, trying to get the industry to push UK investments more, or to encourage people to put more in UK investmentw. 2. The firms don't want to do that, or they're already doing what they can, but want to retain good links with the government, so they come up with the idea of a joint marketing campaign to promote UK investment. 3. Most of the firms realise it will achieve very little, but will keep the govt on-side. 20 firms each agree to put up £800k for an initial year, with the possibility of continuing for another 2 years. A small cost individually for big financial firms. 4. There's then a process to appoint media and creative agencies to come up with a concept, and get paid a few hundred thousand pounds. 5. There is collective realisation there is nowhere to actually point people who see the ads: they can't go to an individual website to open an investment account, as there are 20 firms involved. And if they send them to a central place, there is little they can put there, other than info on how investing works. 6. They also have the problem of getting 20 firms to agree the creative approach. 7. So then it all ends up a bit 'lowest common denominator' - they come up with a bland cartoon mascot, and infantilise the audience as there's always worry that people won't 'get it', and the only reference points for campaigns like this are other bland mascots. 8. There's then a big launch, with the headline number of 'up to'£50m to get press coverage, though usually that assumes it will run for several years and none of the firms will back out. 9. The campaign launch, and criticism of the launch, generally gets more coverage than the campaign itself. The £50m sounds good to the press, as it is big enough to sound impactful, but sounds wasteful to others. 10. At the end they're not sure how to measure its effect, so all of the firms involved are asked to supply numbers on how well the campaign has affected them - they all scrap around to find the most positive numbers they can, as they don't want to look bad, and then centrally they add that to a 'brand recall' campaign which asks if people have heard of 'Savvy Squirrel', and if they've thought about investing more in the last 6 months. Ie: nothing which really indicates that the campaign has helped people to invest more, bit things that will sound broadly positive. 11. Everyone in the industry pretends it's gone well, as they want to appear successful to each other, snd want to keep the govt on-side. The media agencies pretend it's gone well, as if it continues they get paid for another year. But nobody's fully sure if it made a positive difference, or no difference, or if - counterintuitively- it was worse than doing nothing, as it took up time and money that could have been used more wisely. And then it continues till it fizzles out, or the next government is in place. Not saying it is the case here, but having seen a few of these I have suspicions!

The tunnel wasn’t widened and it wasn’t made into a network. It was just given a facelift twice. Glasgow’s ‘slums’ were cleared out in the postwar period, with population shifted to ‘New Towns’ like Cumbernauld and concrete tower blocks dotted around the new Brutalist centre of Motherwell. warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/…

@JustInOutput @humantransit It’s been improved twice, and I’ve no idea what you’re prattling on about Glasgow getting “cleared out”.

Never aspire to a "unique" public transit technology. It means everything is more expensive and someday some vendor can shut you down if they quit making parts. The more you use technologies in common use, the more actual public transport you'll be able to provide.

Living in a town (circa 12k people) where I’m 8 minutes walk away from a main street (with two butchers, post office, general store, newsagent, 3 convenience shops, two charity shops, 4 cafes), a 5 min walk from a railway station, 7 min from a small grocery store and 12 min from a large grocery store is wonderful. We have loads of families with young children around. It’s a great community! I’m genuinely sorry this is a seemingly impossible setup in North America.

@Erosmacvyas @RossLydall @se1 For this building, but the anger you’re decrying is part of the feedback mechanism that should be learnt from.

@JustInOutput @RossLydall @se1 Maybe but that ship has sailed!

Quite extraordinary to see what has become of the “old” City Hall. Opened by the Queen in 2002. Vacated by London mayor Sir Sadiq Khan in 2021.

@Erosmacvyas @RossLydall @se1 Yes, so it shouldn’t have been built in the first place! Rather than building expensive ego-stroking carbuncles, architects should build the sorts of buildings people want to occupy and keep around for centuries (without needing complete facade refits every couple decades).

@JustInOutput @RossLydall @se1 It’s also a waste when no one wants to occupy it! So getting it redeveloped means it will be used and everyone will benefit from the redevelopment.

@Erosmacvyas @RossLydall @se1 The building was only 20 years old when they vacated it and now needs a whole refurbishment at 25 years. That’s a monumental waste of resources.

@RossLydall @se1 Not sure why everyone is complaining! It’s been vacant for years and now it’s being redeveloped so it can be occupied by new tenants. What’s the issue? People love to complain about nothing!

the new york times politely discussed the assassination of a businessman with hasan piker, who made the case, in the new york times, for assassination. this is not a small thing. this is an insane, unacceptable thing that every liberal needs to denounce.

Antiseptics are broader antimicrobials and only used topically, but an antibiotic mix used topically like Neosporin is performing essentially the same function. And that is beside the point of my original comment, which is that you don’t need to consult doctors because such antiseptic agents are available.

@JustInOutput @ClimateWarrior7 Antiseptics are not antibiotics.

Americans believe this stuff is keeping them alive. We don't have it in Europe!

@CJ_Haslett @ClimateWarrior7 Hey @Grok, can you give a list of medications typically available over the counter in Britain that Americans must grovel to their doctor or pharmacist for? Or don’t even have available at all (like amorolfine).

@ClimateWarrior7 Because you can get almost nothing over the counter there.

@ClimateWarrior7 Because we all have topical antibiotics in our first aid kits right next to the band aids.

I keep hearing that people in ye olden times would die from simple things like a cut finger, because there were no antibiotics. But I don't know a single person who's consulted a doctor over a cut finger.

@GerardBCNG @b2analog @Dalrymple K, that has nothing to do with my point, which wasn’t that rebar is “only for tension”. All those modern examples involves concrete in tension and my Roman example involves compression and uses tremendous compression to counter shear forces.

@JustInOutput @b2analog @Dalrymple No, rebar is not only for tension. You cant just build a house with concrete walls, it woudnt pass modern regulations, shear also needs to be taken into account in the structural frame.

In 900 years none of this will exist or even be remembered bc it turns out modern reinforced concrete doesn’t last very long.

@b2analog @Dalrymple Yes, but it must then be treated as stone, always in compression not tension, making most designs like those examples impossible.

@Dalrymple Can concrete be used without metal reinforcement? (Honest question.)