Tim Reay

@dsayers @anon_opin Or you might consider that deliveries or tradesmen's journeys are more necessary than commuters'. Tradesmen can't get to a building in their vans if the streets are clogged with cars, etc.

@dsayers @anon_opin You might want to take a taxi or a bus or a bike within the city (or couriers deliver stuff within the city), which you wouldn't be able to do if hordes of commuters were jamming up the roads.

All drivers should have 2 weeks per year when they are not allowed to drive. It would make them realise how shit town planning/road safety/public transport is for pedestrians in the UK and maybe do something about it.

@slabbydab @dsayers @anon_opin Yes, and they do. But for example the city might argue that if you restrict people from commuting in (by more than they would self-restrict), you make the traffic within the city flow more freely so people can get from A to B by taxi or bus or whatever.

@timreay @dsayers @anon_opin Then they would change their commute naturally Nothing in your reply needs government interference

@dsayers @anon_opin Because it causes traffic jams in the city. Better to (for example) discourage people from commuting in, so people can get from A to B within the city (by taxi for example).

@timreay @anon_opin Not your issue is it? If someone wants to sit in traffic, struggle for a parking space then pay an exorbitant amount for parking why can’t you just let them do it?!

@TaraBull Out of interest, what specific law is being broken here? Is there a law against connecting a phone to YouTube and setting it to watch videos? If not, why would there be a law against doing the same thing with a thousand phones?

Police just uncovered a YouTube 'view farm' after a sting operation... Phones mounted to the ceiling running nonstop for fake views.

@dsayers @anon_opin In London, if everyone who wanted to drive did so, there would be gridlock, and there aren't enough parking spaces. 700,000 people commute into the City of London (which is one square mile each day). Where would you park 700,000 cars?

@timreay @anon_opin And what exactly is the issue if they want to choose to drive?

@MAVERIC68078049 Need to try with the same car, though. In 1990 (and even more so in previous decades) cars weren't as aerodynamic.

I am sure many of you have noticed this.

@BjarkinOff @mnolangray Even if they only last 5 years, that's only $300 a year. An old petrol-engined car costs more than that each year in maintenance (I speak from experience :-( )

@mnolangray You’re a dumbass. The only way that you are only spending $1500 for the battery replacement is if they use used batteries from junked cars, or if you are lucky refurbished batteries, neither of those are lasting 20 years. You don’t know what you’re talking about

Remember in the late 00s/early 10s when the Top Gear guys would endlessly joke about how the Prius was an unreliable car, reliant on untested technology? I remember.

@nordicurse @HSVSphere I can now see how it would work - if the pins are inserted for the few mm needed to be able to rotate the cover, the grounds possibly wouldn't come into contact with the corresponding grooves on the plug. (I'd have to try it and see...)

@HSVSphere @timreay How do you insert this in there? Is it shallow enough for the prongs to rotate it before grounds and slots on the sides prevent it from turning?

Another reason why Type F plugs are just better. Exposed grounds, 180° flippable, compact versions for grounding-free exist, and you can have rotating locks for kids as it is symmetrical. The British plug is absolutely horrible to use in comparison.

@dsayers @anon_opin Doesn't work in cities, though, because the choice that suits most people would be to have and drive a car but for a significant proportion of the other residents of the city not to. Outside the cities, there isn't really the same issue.

@timreay @anon_opin Or even better - butt out of interfering in people’s lives and let them make the choice that suits them.

@grok @digijordan Why was the cash value so much less than the advertised value? And that's a lot of tax - my understanding in the UK is that lottery winnings aren't taxed.

Yes, lottery records confirm the Zorro Trust claimed the July 2, 2008, Oklahoma Powerball jackpot (advertised $85M, cash value ~$41M). It took the lump-sum payout of $29.3M after taxes. This matches the Zorro Trust Epstein used for his New Mexico ranch (purchased 1993). 2026-released DOJ files explicitly tie it to him winning an ~$80M lottery (minor discrepancies in state/amount noted). Contemporary 2008 reports (Oklahoman, Journal Record) name only the anonymous trust—no fraud proven, process standard per officials.

Hey @grok Did Jeffrey Epstein win an $85 million Powerball jackpot on July 2, 2008?

@London_W4 There is one (or at least was one 20 years ago - I wonder if it's still there?) at the Windsor Castle on Campden Hill Road in Kensington.

And now I’m here in this beautiful pub in Maida Vale, London. As you can see from the door to the left of the bar stools, this is one of the last surviving pubs that was originally built for dwarves, or midgets as I think they’re now called (or possibly elves). I have to limbo dance with my drink to get through these four foot high doors, but it’s worth it to know that I’m supporting the little people.

@BenjaminOCall And if you wanted the same frequency with the slower trains, i.e. a half-hourly service with a one-hour journey time, you'd need to buy 4 trains instead of 2. //

@BenjaminOCall ... Then imagine you double the operating speed so it takes half an hour. You provide a half-hourly service. You can still do that with two (evidently much faster) trains. You move twice as many people per hour with the same number of trains.

have you ran the numbers on how much more it’ll cost having the trains run slower? over a 16 hour day that adds up to each train running once less than it otherwise would’ve, reducing capacity and requiring another train to be ordered

@daniellismore To be fair, many of those empty homes are a result of people dying and their heirs are awaiting probate (or someone is trying to find the heirs). Apparently the next largest number of empty homes are those owned by councils. BBC did an excellent documentary on this.

They keep saying migrants are the reason you cannot get a home. Sit with the numbers for a second. There are 242,000 people in England facing the worst forms of homelessness. Around 32,000 asylum seekers are in hotels. That is the figure they want you to picture. That is the image they repeat. Now look at what they leave out. There are 998,000 empty homes in England. Over 265,000 have been sitting empty long term. Entire streets. Entire blocks. Locked up while people are told there is no space. Then there is land. Not green fields. Not the last bits of nature left around towns. Brownfield land. Former industrial sites. Places already built on and abandoned. Reports show almost 1.5 million homes could be built there. So the truth is uncomfortable for them. This is not a shortage created by migrants. It is a system that leaves homes empty while people sleep in temporary accommodation. It is a choice to ignore brownfield land while threatening green space. It is a failure of policy not an invasion of people. The numbers do not support the story they are selling. Every person in temporary housing and every asylum seeker in a hotel could be housed without touching a single piece of greenbelt. The capacity already exists. The land already exists. The homes already exist. Blaming migrants is easier. It is louder. It gets headlines. Fixing the system would require actually doing the work.

@BenjaminOCall ... homologating them to a higher speed once the line is built and they have somewhere to test them.

@BenjaminOCall Also: why would they order different trains? In Italy the newest trains are homologated to run at up to 360km/h but they are limited to 300 because of the track. In UK they could buy the 225mph trains, test and homologate them to (say) 180mph, with a view to ...