Mailwatch(ed) Forum

It wouldn't hurt to give the Trans-Pennine route a major upgrade but also, to reverse this fuck-up:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Rail_Mark_5A

However, I now see Chiltern's got that rolling stock.

Cheers. I actually thought more infrastructure was shared with HS2 than that, but encouraging.

I've travelled along the Trans-Pennine route in the past: it desperately needed longer trains as much as it needed competent management. It's a while ago now but three-car Class 170 DMUs were completely unsuitable - and as for the P*c*rs...

UK is the fastest growing economy in the G7 this year. Wouldn't normally bother too much with the data of 2 quarters, but they do it us. 0.3% growth in a quarter isn't normally something to cheer, but it was axiomatic a couple of days ago that the fast growth in Q1 was all down to stockpiling for Trump tariffs, and that construction was now doing particularly badly. It grew by 1.2% this quarter. And everything else had been flattened by Reeves' "jobs tax". Talking of which, it probably has cost some jobs by starting at too low a level. But lots of people have been telling us that it was a scandal that employees had to claim tax credits (it is sometimes, sometimes it isn't because the alternative is those people not being employed at all, and it is they who benefit primarily from tax credits). What would you do as a government if this was something you were targeting? You'd probably raise the minimum wage in real terms, and make these low paying employers pay more NI towards the cost of tax credits. That's exactly what they've done. To virtually universal condemnation.

I thought Reeves was sounding surprisingly bullish the other day. Now I realize she must have seen the figures.

The online safety bill seems to be flawed. But this is absolute tripe, as far as I can tell. I've just listened to a Tupac track on YouTube and read about Hamas on wikipedia. Ron Wyden has his own US audience and you can see why he might believe this but why is Paul Bernal doing this? Someone BTL points out it's rubbish. Bernal doesn't care.

WikiMedia is full of porn and has been for many years.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 12:26 pm I thought Reeves was sounding surprisingly bullish the other day. Now I realize she must have seen the figures.

Don't worry. There'll be another set of figures along in a minute to show she's useless.

There's already the £50bn black hole projection to scare us all to death. This is based on one think tank projecting much less growth than the OBR. According to Reuters there are other economists who think it'll be nearer £20bn. And even if the highest figure was right, we'd be talking about an embarrassing political U-turn on tax, not Argentina.

As an aside, I just happened to notice a discussion on universities where (predictably) PPE came in for its usual kicking. From the people I know who did it (who by no means all became rich political insiders), it seemed fine. Hard to deny that some bad people have done it though. But the example of someone who showed it was bad? Rachel Reeves.

davidjay wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:07 am Round our, and therefore Abers', way the streets are full of revving idiots with defective exhausts driving like maniacs because they know they'll get away with it. They know where the fixed speed cameras are, the mobile ones are never out at night and there's no police patrols. Red lights are for other people, drive how you like, park where you like.

Are they also members of the "pops and bangs" brigade, where the ECU is modified to send unburnt fuel down the exhaust system on the engine's overrun and ignited within? I wrote on a YT channel that such individuals and their enablers should be exterminated and perhaps unsurprisingly, my comment got deleted. Fuck knows what these "pops and bangs" do to those with autism or even just a nervous disposition; my car ended up with one such individual "because he knew ECUs" (mine had developed a fault and Siemens no longer made them) and yet somehow, has failed to fix mine two years later. The car has just been dumped by his garage - I ought to get it back...

Today's cross party alliance of "everything's going to shit" have alighted on data centers. I can't claim to know much about these but I'm guessing that it's at least possible that we don't forget to provide extra electricity and water capacity. A lot of them are in the home counties, but one is also due in Newport, Gwent and the biggest of all is due in Blyth, Northumberland.

They are going to use a lot of electricity, and that electricity is going to have to be cleanly generated. Which means wind turbines and pylons that might have to be sited in your back yard. And they will use a lot of cooling water, though it's not like that water can't be used for anything else afterwards.

I suspect it all fundamentally boils down to "Wah, wah! New things that I don't fully understand!"

Maybe the much-vaunted Rolls-Royce mini nuclear power stations? It would be a novel idea to use the waste water for community heating projects.

Boiler wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 3:07 pm Maybe the much-vaunted Rolls-Royce mini nuclear power stations?

Like fusion which is always 30 years away, I suspect SMRs will always be 5 years in the future.

"By 1980, nuclear fusion will supply free electricity to every household on the planet."

Boiler wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 10:28 am

davidjay wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:07 am Round our, and therefore Abers', way the streets are full of revving idiots with defective exhausts driving like maniacs because they know they'll get away with it. They know where the fixed speed cameras are, the mobile ones are never out at night and there's no police patrols. Red lights are for other people, drive how you like, park where you like.

Are they also members of the "pops and bangs" brigade, where the ECU is modified to send unburnt fuel down the exhaust system on the engine's overrun and ignited within? I wrote on a YT channel that such individuals and their enablers should be exterminated and perhaps unsurprisingly, my comment got deleted. Fuck knows what these "pops and bangs" do to those with autism or even just a nervous disposition; my car ended up with one such individual "because he knew ECUs" (mine had developed a fault and Siemens no longer made them) and yet somehow, has failed to fix mine two years later. The car has just been dumped by his garage - I ought to get it back...

They invariably are and I agree with you. Perhaps some giant grabber device should permanently be in the air on the lookout for miscreants and when they're spotted they could be lifted up and taken to a crusher. Whether or not the driver is still inside would depend on my mood at the time.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Aug 14, 2025 5:12 pm The online safety bill seems to be flawed. But this is absolute tripe, as far as I can tell. I've just listened to a Tupac track on YouTube and read about Hamas on wikipedia. Ron Wyden has his own US audience and you can see why he might believe this but why is Paul Bernal doing this? Someone BTL points out it's rubbish. Bernal doesn't care.

I see many Americans on Bluesky who are willing to believe all sorts of things about the government. A common phrase I hear is that Labour are what leftists say the Democrats are supposed to be like.

davidjay wrote: ↑Tue Aug 12, 2025 11:07 am Round our, and therefore Abers', way the streets are full of revving idiots with defective exhausts driving like maniacs because they know they'll get away with it. They know where the fixed speed cameras are, the mobile ones are never out at night and there's no police patrols. Red lights are for other people, drive how you like, park where you like.

Speaking of maniacs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx29pd75ye0o

Antonia's working hard and sounds like some good things are happening locally. Sadly, between the "we just want the hotels closed" and "anything to do with aviation is bad" voter blocks. there'll probably be about 5 votes left for their excellent MP.

https://bsky.app/profile/antoniabance.b ... jc2fwn522d

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Fri Aug 15, 2025 1:53 pm Today's cross party alliance of "everything's going to shit" have alighted on data centers. I can't claim to know much about these but I'm guessing that it's at least possible that we don't forget to provide extra electricity and water capacity. A lot of them are in the home counties, but one is also due in Newport, Gwent and the biggest of all is due in Blyth, Northumberland.

I read the article and 90% of it is the sort of bollocks you hear from "non technical managers".
File alongside "why don't we just use bigger batteries".

I am puzzled that any sane business considers locating such large installations close to the land-price gravity well that is London.
If you'd like to save a few scheckels on cooling, bits of Northern England, Wales and Scotland are available at far lower cost.

There are arguments to be had about economy of scale Vs having a massive energy (and water?) sink in one location.
The present IT model favours a handful of massive locations for public cloud services.

New use will increase energy draw, and AI is a big culprit here..
Mid size businesses switching their computing to cloud will decommission far less efficient in-house setups..
It's the end of my job (unless I want to serve as an underpaid cable changer for a billionaire).
But it's very difficult to argue against the logic of adopting the cloud for most IT applications.

I believe water is the same red herring / fallacy we see in "It takes 400 gallons of water to grow an almond".