Paul

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• Commented on I can't even
  Greg Tingey @ 194: WHAT "inspect" in my web browser? Where? Sorry Greg, and others. More explanation follows. This applies to browsers running on a PC. It won't work on Android or (AFAIK) IOS. Details depend on the browser, but...
• Commented on I can't even
  EC: This article is quite good on the topic: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/labour-keir-starmer-liz-truss-budget-b2189908.html Indeed. Thanks for posting it. Hint: to get around the paywall click "Inspect" in your web browser, search for "limited-access" and delete the "class" attribute that it's part of....
• Commented on I can't even
  Would that let C3 get away with going off-script in the King's Speech to Parliament ? No. No way. Not under any circumstances. That would directly involve the crown in everyday politics. It doesn't matter how right or justified anyone...
• Commented on I can't even
  EC @ 123: Do you remember the 1960s? Not personally, I was busy being born. But I sort-of remember the 1970s. I've also read The Trouble With Lichen by John Wyndham, which satirises the UK politics and media around 1960....
• Commented on I can't even
  EC @ 24: No, the hard core Tory supporters will move only from Conservative to National Front. It's the unthinking masses that do what the media tell them - "It's the Sun wot won it" had a lot of truth...
• Commented on I can't even
  TRB: The Winter of '79 [lyrics elided] Also from the 1970s: Sling another chair leg on the fire, Mother by Pan Ayres. Its simultaneously nostalgic and prophetic right now. I won't post the full version because copyright, but here's a...
• Commented on I can't even
  Charlie: We can in principle do better [than the French Revolution] -- a progressive wealth tax or asset tax could work over a period of decades without the need for heads on pikes or radical expropriation. There is in fact...
• Commented on Necroqueen!
  On a totally different topic, https://beta.character.ai/ You can build your own AI chatbot with a potted bio and a short sample conversation. Or you can chat with a huge variety of things other people have built, including Linux, Florence from...
• Commented on Necroqueen!
  And I'll fire up a new blog discussion when my morale recovers enough to see the funny side of this shit sandwich Truss and Kwarteng have handed us I have to admit that when Truss and Krazy Kwarteng were...
• Commented on Necroqueen!
  So it's easy to put together a tank crew from retirees. Finding them a tank is another, much harder problem! It sounds like the Russian plan to recruit people with "previous military experience" is only skin deep. There are...
• Commented on Necroqueen!
  NecroMoz @ 256: Especially if you look at other places where the US and groups like the World Bank have "invested" because of their valuable resources... Nigeria, for example, isn't a great example of the benefits that World Bank involvement...
• Commented on Necroqueen!
  EC @ 176: * The point is the determination (dating from 2014) that no solution (whether that or other) should be done by negotiation or UN involvement, or involve treating ethnic Russians as humans who also deserve rights.* Presumably you...
• Commented on London Bridge
  Moz: Unverified claim: of the 193 members of the United Nations, Britain has invaded 171. Only if you take an unusually broad definition of the term "invaded". It includes any kind of formal or informal military presence, no matter how...
• Commented on London Bridge
  In other good news, the Etherium cryptocurrency is no longer boiling the oceans. It has transitioned from "proof of work" (rows of specialist computers burning electricity for the right to create the next block on the blockchain) to proof-of-stake (a...
• Commented on London Bridge
  Maybe we should have a rolling list of noted strange attractors that are now officially considered "talked out" and banned from discussion for 6 months....
• Commented on London Bridge
  JBS @ 523: Also, as King, I expect he has a strong "Bully Pulpit" No, he doesn't. The monarch cannot simply cannot hold forth on any subject that is remotely political, as defined by the parties currently sitting in parliament....
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  Reported conversation between Her Majesty and a guest at a garden party: And what do you do? I'm a photographer. Really? I have a cousin who is a photographer. That's a co-incidence! I have a cousin who is a queen!...
• Commented on London Bridge
  British oil tank regulations. https://www.gov.uk/oil-storage-regulations-and-safety/home TL;DR it depends on the likely consequences of a leak....
• Commented on London Bridge
  Charlie @ 133: Firstly, the British population are poorer than you think -- think Kentucky or Mississippi: there are a lot of billionaires and a lot of people who already can't afford to run a hot shower once a week....
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  Can I just point out that the sewage overflows into the sea are not a new problem? It goes back to the original design of the system back in the Victorian era. I can remember as a boy seeing exposes...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  From what I've read, I'd have thought that slavery would work against an industrial revolution. Slaves are cheap labour. Labour competes with machinery, and if labour is cheap enough machines that replace labour aren't economic. Hence industrialisation is slowed down....
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  Back on the origins of the industrial revolution(s), here is some more food for thought on printing. See also episode 4 of "The Day the Universe Changed" by James Burke. The gist is that Gutenberg's combination of moveable metal type...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  Here is a much better write-up on the aluminium sulphur battery. One electrode is aluminium. The scientists used aluminium cooking foil, so that's not difficult to get at. The electrolyte is molten aluminium chloride with a bit of sodium and...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  Heteromeles @ 825: One of the things I've learned is Charlie's lesson about stories, that there are far more out there than there will ever be time to write, so nurture a few good ones and treat the rest like...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  "Everyone is at their proper place as ordained by God, and you should be happy with yours". Yes, very true. The hymn All Things Bright And Beautiful originally had a third verse that ran: The rich man in his castle,...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  ilya187: To me these "losers" sound smarter than the psychiatrists trying to help them: Instead of trying to get a bit ahead in what is inherently a zero-sum game, they want to increase the sum a bit. The zero sum...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  Martin Rogers @ 776: Anyway, here's the Maslow relevance: "Domestic abuse is rooted in inequality – that needs to be aggressively tackled but so, too, does bringing the right kind of help to boys such as the Kouachis long before...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  The news media seem to be entirely pre-Maslow. Are you referring to Maslow's Hierarchy? I've never quite known what to make of that. If so, does it have any relevance to our current problems?...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  Heteromeles @ 462: While I agree on steam and coal, I disagree that China didn't have the opportunity. IIRC, they were using coal in salt and iron-making, and they're the first people to invent reciprocating cylinder pumps. So it's less...
• Commented on The gathering crisis
  (... and now I am imagining a village with a hand built dam, and a kilometer of wire that gets moved around on poles to power the electric "tractor"... ) So where does this kilometer of wire come from? Not...