GreatAlbatross

joined 1 year ago
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[–] GreatAlbatross 2 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

This would be great news. Imho, council run buses are a great public good.
When you have a large town/city, it's really important to have a way to get around that's not expensive.
You only have to visit somewhere with a properly run network to see the difference.

Reading for example:

As a municipally owned bus service, the council says Reading Buses can invest an additional £3m a year in the bus network, around 12-15% of its annual turnover, because it does not pay out dividends to private shareholders.

Money from commuter services also subsidises smaller less well-used routes.

Edit: Another place it helps councils: Old people bus passes.

In June 2023 the LGA said there was a £452 million gap in the funding councils receive from government compared to the actual number of ENCTS journeys made in 2022. This meant that councils were having to plug the financial gap from their “own stretched budgets”, which was “completely unsustainable

So a LA owned bus company with lower fares means the council doesn't end up making up the shortfall between what the government pays for free journeys and what the bus company decides to charge.

[–] GreatAlbatross 9 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I think he might have watched The Emperor's New Groove.

[–] GreatAlbatross 3 points 1 day ago

Thank you for putting me on to where goes :)

[–] GreatAlbatross 38 points 1 day ago

Probability that this person is over 30?

[–] GreatAlbatross 1 points 1 day ago

It's worth noting that most places without a "signature" style just use espresso as the base nowadays. Because espresso is a much easier way to start (as it's a small amount of coffee syrup, without the water).
And outside of speciality (pour-over/cold-brew), it's the preferred extraction method.

[–] GreatAlbatross 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Because there won't be any more after you state-own it all, right?

Right?

[–] GreatAlbatross 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

There is a good chance this is just a fake letter.
This guy was making them for fun a while back, and they surface from time to time.
I'm pretty sure the dashcam submission system is called Operation Snap, not Capture, too.

[–] GreatAlbatross 2 points 4 days ago

It's a multi-part problem.

You've got people unsure which bits they should be proud of.
And you've got wankers with no other redeeming qualities focussing on just how proud they are.

I think we're hopefully going through a bit of a reconciliation period, and will eventually come out the other side proud of some of the good and/or interesting things the country has been up to for the past few millenia.

[–] GreatAlbatross 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

ML summary:

Jas Athwal, the Labour Party MP for Ilford South, is a landlord with properties that tenants say have poor living conditions.
In the selection process for the Ilford South seat, Athwal won a higher percentage of votes from the party's online "Anonyvoter" system compared to in-person votes, despite his opponent Sam Tarry winning more of the in-person votes.
There are concerns about a lack of transparency and potential for fraud in the Anonyvoter system, which has also been used in other Labour candidate selection processes with similar results favoring more centrist candidates.
Former Labour MPs Sam Tarry and Beth Winter have raised legal concerns about the use of Anonyvoter, and several Labour-affiliated unions have expressed doubts about the system.

[–] GreatAlbatross 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

That's the gist to be honest.
RTB gives people the right after a certain amount of time, but lack of funding meant that councils weren't able to replace the stock.
The discount is up to 70% too. So while each person who can exercise RTB gets an impressive leg up into the housing market, it's contributed to even longer waiting lists for council housing.

It also creates a bit of an ethical dilemma if you are in council housing.
As if you start doing better financially, and are able to afford regular accommodation, you have an incentive to hold until you can RTB instead. (Though there are apparently now re-assessments at tenancy renewal time)

Really, the answer is way, way, way more council housing. But the money just isn't available.

[–] GreatAlbatross 2 points 6 days ago

"All customer installs need to have firewalls disabled, and the widget needs to run as domain admin"

Continues until a big enough customer puts their foot down, at which point all the installation engineers get upset because they need to do something new.

[–] GreatAlbatross 17 points 6 days ago

Anything involving Myers–Briggs.

 

Anybody else on here on the 3D train?

Having recently finished setting up the projector (bin rescue), screen (£20, gumtree), and working out the glasses required (£20, eBay), I finally got my first taste of home shutterglass 3D.

We watched Pirates!, as I happened to have the disc in 3D already.
3D lends itself well to Aardman's models and physical sets.
I like 3D best when it's like looking through a window, or onto a stage.

It also turned out that my steelbook of The Hobbit contained the 3D copy too.
We're only 30 mins through it, but there are some nice shots (I particularly liked the one of Bilbo watching Gandalf through the window)

I checked with CEX, and 3D discs are now mostly quite reasonably priced. So we went and bought about 70% of the local branch's stock, for the princely sum of £20.*

While yes, it is a novelty, and a bit of a gimmick at times...It's fun.
And gives me a bonus inexpensive collectable hobby!

*(Pro-tip: If you're going to do similar, go when it's not busy, and apologise to them in advance. The 3D discs are all mixed in with the standard ones, and the poor guys spent about 20 minutes hunting)

 
 

Someone looted Lush.

"Don't worry darling, I got something for you"

26
submitted 4 weeks ago by GreatAlbatross to c/casualuk
 

And it is delicious.

After the nearest outlet shut its doors, and facing a walk of almost 800m (!) to the next closest, I decided to try Aldi's not-greggs-but-basically-is.

And honestly...They're not half bad.
We tried the rolls, chicken, and steak bakes. They're about 1/4 of the price. And live in the freezer. Ideal.

This post was not supported or sponsored by Aldi. No free snacks for this albatross.

 

We played through it this weekend. tl;dr: It's funny, about 3-4 hours (or maybe more), and worth the money.

It is incredibly silly, and fantastic for it.
imho, if perfectly captures stupid british humour.

Our favourite moments involved vegan sausage rolls, mysterious sausage holes, and a very friendly mole.

You will also probably be quoting the marrow song for a while.

(And I will just clarify since I'm an admin: I paid for the game, and CoalSupper didn't put me up to this positive mention)

 

Has anybody on here had an experiment with the supermarket tags?

My understanding is that you get a bunch of the tags, somehow get a base-station/transceiver working with them, and push data as images.

I'd love to hear from anyone who's had a go. I quite fancy having some little displays around the house with useful info for the room.

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