merridew

joined 2 years ago
[–] merridew 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The watchdog said that in previous winters some electricity generators had deliberately stopped generating power early in the afternoon, meaning plants were switched off during the crucial evening spike in demand. They would then offer to resume generating power later in the day, cashing in on the greatly increased prices on offer via the balancing mechanism.

Sounds rather similar to the behaviour of a little energy company based in the USA called Enron:

After the passage of the deregulation law, California had a total of 38 Stage 3 rolling blackouts declared, until federal regulators intervened in June 2001. [...] Subsequently, Enron traders were revealed as intentionally encouraging the removal of power from the market during California's energy crisis by encouraging suppliers to shut down plants to perform unnecessary maintenance, as documented in recordings made at the time. These acts contributed to the need for rolling blackouts, which adversely affected many businesses dependent upon a reliable supply of electricity, and inconvenienced a large number of retail customers. This scattered supply increased the price, and Enron traders were thus able to sell power at premium prices, sometimes up to a factor of 20 × its normal peak value. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron

[–] merridew 7 points 1 year ago

If you can imagine those, I'm sure you can imagine steak flavour. That's all it is.

These steak-flavoured "bubbled chips" are suitable for vegetarians, which raises some additional questions.

[–] merridew 2 points 1 year ago

No problem. There's a lot of confusing stuff surrounding homebuying.

[–] merridew 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

What? There is no limit on the size of funds that can be gifted to help buy a house in the UK. If your family wants to bung you £500k of their own money there's nothing stopping them.

The requirement to demonstrate proof of funds for that money is to prevent money laundering.

[–] merridew 11 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Meat-flavoured crisps are common in the UK. Roast chicken, smoky bacon, and BBQ beef are routine for flavours.

Prawn cocktail crisps taste of prawn cocktail sauce... not of prawns.

[–] merridew 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Roysters are the UK’s only, original, American-style bubble chips!

Best to stick to actual crisps.

https://www.kpsnacks.com/our-brands/#:~:text=Roysters%20are%20the%20UK%27s%20only,classic%20T%2DBone%20Steak%20flavour.

[–] merridew 3 points 1 year ago

Up until 1889, city status was granted on the basis of the existence of having an Anglican cathedral.

It's only been arbitrary since they tore up the rulebook and gave Birmingham city status.

[–] merridew 8 points 1 year ago

In terms of European nuclear weapons, the UK and France already have their own nuclear arsenals. But the broader content of your comment is bang on.

[–] merridew 23 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In an earlier interview this month with Fox News, Ramaswamy said of the layoffs: “What [Musk] did at Twitter is a good example of what I want to do with the administrative state … Take out the 75% of the dead weight cost, improve the actual experience of what it’s supposed to do.”

Unrelated:

Elon Musk admits X (Twitter) 'may fail' after sacking more than 80% of staff, charging for verification and rebranding https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12432129/amp/Elon-Musk-admits-X-Twitter-fail-sacking-80-staff-charging-verification-rebranding.html

[–] merridew 26 points 1 year ago (5 children)

"The outgoing MP, a staunch ally of Sunak’s predecessor Boris Johnson, last spoke in the Commons more than 400 days ago and has voted only six times so far this year."

[–] merridew 6 points 1 year ago

It seemed quite clear at the time that the decision to force (untested) people out of hospitals and into care homes was a decision made because the government wanted hospital capacity freed up, & considered the lives of care home residents a reasonable price to pay for genpop capacity.

Not a nice decision. And one that could have been avoided entirely if the gov hadn't botched pandemic preparedness, and then prevaricated to the point of disaster when a pandemic actually arrived.

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