mackwinston

@mackwinston@feddit.uk

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK in secret talks over financial turmoil at IT giant - that could hit benefits and NHS⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Surprised it’s not Crapita.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Life Wirral School - Post Panorama Airing⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And if the school hadn’t been run like this for years and it being known it was like this for years there wouldn’t have been a TV programme to make. I think you’d have to be pretty gullible to believe their statement.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Two men charged with spying for China under Official Secrets Act⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Presumably it has taken over a year because:

  Cdr Dominic Murphy, head of the Counter Terrorism Command, said it had been an “extremely complex investigation”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨British watchdog has 'real concerns' about the staggering love-in between cloud giants and AI upstarts⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s nothing new, that’s the very basis of how a firm works out how to price an item or service, at the maximum price the market will bear. It has been this way since the year dot.

  Collaborating with “competitors” however must be prevented or the market won’t work. (This is the reason we have anti-monopoly laws, and anti-collusion laws). The laws exist already they just have to be enforced.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Plans to close rail ticket offices in England scrapped⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Probably a clusterfuck.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hunt warns of benefit cuts for people who won’t ‘actively look for work’⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  The OP is clearly using hyperbole. But only 1% of the welfare bill goes on unemployment benefits, so even if absolutely everyone on unemployment benefits is cheating and you cut them off, you don’t save much. In reality the majority of people on unemployment benefits are not cheating the system - a system that already sanctions the unemployed for not actively seeking work.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Common global rules needed ahead of ‘flying taxi’ boom, UK regulator says⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Not only that, but they will make an ungodly racket while doing so. Multi propellers all turning at a slightly different RPM, with all the annoying beat frequencies this will create. They will also likely be almost as expensive as helicopters (only a very small amount of a helicopter’s cost is its fuel, the overwhelming majority is maintenance and insurance).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft's Activision Blizzard bid provisionally approved by UK regulator⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  They both do significant business in the UK. To continue doing business in the UK, they must abide with UK competition laws.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Northamptonshire: Two dangerous drivers engage in 'road rage' head-to-head on rural road⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  A road rage conviction should result in a lifetime ban or until a medical professional can certify that the person is mentally fit to drive.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Road casualties have become normal in Britain. But there is another way⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I love the arguments about tolerances, how “having to stare at the speedometer will make things less safe”.

  The average 17 year old is expected to be able to drive at a steady speed while dividing attention effectively and NOT staring at the speedometer. So basically all the people going on about how they will “have to stare at the speedo” are saying: “Speed limits shouldn’t be enforced because I’m too incompetent to safely drive at the speed limit”. It makes me think that it would be a good idea that driving licenses really expire at their expiration date, requiring a new driving test.

  Anyone who thinks driving at the speed limit needs to stare at the speedo seriously needs some remedial training from a driving instructor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube suspends monetisation of Russell Brand's channel⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve never forgiven that arsehole for what he did to Andrew Sachs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Tame’ wide British roads and replace them with boulevards of homes, says thinktank⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  No, not just housing but a boulevard. By definition a boulevard is wide. It wouldn’t be a boulevard if they made the road narrow by building houses on the road rather than by the side of the road, so while the article doesn’t explicitly say it, by calling it “boulevards of new housing” implies that the thoroughfare does indeed remain wide, and becomes tree lined rather than car-lined.

  The Cambridge English Dictionary defines a boulevard as:

  “A wide road in a city, usually with trees on each side or along the centre”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Tame’ wide British roads and replace them with boulevards of homes, says thinktank⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think the idea is to build houses on the wide roads, the idea is to build them beside the wide roads but remove space for private cars and instead repurpose that space for pedestrians and cyclists (in other words, have wide pavements ideally tree lined but instead of 4 wide lanes of cars maybe 2 narrow lanes with most of the space turned over as a public space for people).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Missing Prisoner Daniel Khalife arrested by police in Chiswick, West London⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Look at it from his point of view. His plan probably went no further than the escape, so once he was off the lorry it was “Now what?” If he had a real followup plan he probably would have got much further. One of his former school mates was quoted as saying “One thing I will tell you though, he’s not a terrorist. He doesn’t know his arse from his elbow”.

  He had a window of about 2 hours when he could have used public transport to move around (after which too many people would be looking for him) - but during that time he has no money, and given pretty much every station in London has ticket barriers, he’s not going to be getting around by train or by bus unless he can lift someone’s Oyster card or contactless card without being noticed, and from quotes about his past, apart from the idiotic fake bombs that got him into this mess in the first place, he seems to be a first-time criminal, so successfully pulling off thefts or shoplifting was probably not something he was practised or good at.

  After that time he’s pretty much limited to travelling on foot in places where he won’t get a second look, or at night. He probably found a poorly-secured bicycle on Saturday morning and gambled that people wouldn’t give someone cycling down the towpath a second look, and it’s faster than walking.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wednesday Whinge - 30th August 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Awful head cold last week, one of those that buggers up the ears (could barely hear sounds below about middle C, making everything sound tinny like it was on a cheap radio).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Wednesday Whinge - 23rd August 2023⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  If you’re concerned about your blood pressure it’s worth getting a blood pressure monitor (choose a type that’s listed by the British Heart Foundation or the NHS). Just being in a doctor’s surgery or hospital can cause “white coat hypertension” and it doesn’t take tensing up much to add ten or twenty mmHg to your blood pressure (1mmHg isn’t much pressure).

  If you can test at home and take an average over a decent amount of time, then it will give you a much better picture of what your BP actually is, and whether there is a problem, and if there is a problem, if what you’re doing is helping to fix the problem.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s driving Cycling Mikey, Britain’s most hated cyclist?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Very few taxi firms, the practise has largely died out. I can’t tell you the last time I got into a taxi with a handheld radio in it. One taxi firm here still has a large dipole on the roof of their building, but AFAIK they no longer use it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s driving Cycling Mikey, Britain’s most hated cyclist?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  No, two way radios are by and large used by the police, ambulance and fire (and certainly when it comes to the police, they like to exempt themselves from legislation they find inconvenient - e.g. for the longest time, motorcycle visor tints were illegal unless you were the police in which case they were just fine!)

  Also, alas, politics/legislation is the art of the possible, and perfect is the enemy of the good. Doing nothing because it would be politically impossible to ban all phone use while driving is a worse state of affairs than at least banning handheld phone usage. Of course it bothers me as I’m frequently a vulnerable road user (I own several motorcycles, and do all my local journeys on a pushbike or walk, and I’ve been hit by drivers whose standard of observation has been piss poor) but at the same time I have to recognise that at least a ban on handheld phone use will reduce my chance of getting hit, even if (at the moment) all phone usage isn’t banned, and so while it is not perfect it is better than nothing. And more power to Mikey for dobbing people in.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s driving Cycling Mikey, Britain’s most hated cyclist?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Anyways, all of that aside - is using a handheld phone while stuck in traffic more dangerous than using a handsfree phone while travelling at 60 miles an hour?

  That I don’t know. However, using a hand held phone in a traffic jam is certainly hazardous, as my Houston ramming incident demonstrated. (CyclingMikey has also several videoed incidents of people driving very badly in traffic jams while using hand held phones, putting vulnerable road users such as pedestrians at risk).

  Personally I think all mobile phone use behind the wheel should be banned including hands-free, but legislation is often the art of the possible and lines have to be drawn somewhere (e.g. why is the speed limit in urban areas 30 mph, not 31 or 35 or 25? At some point someone has to draw that line. Enforcability would also be a factor, and when considering a change in the law, and it would be very hard to enforce a ban on hands free phone use).

  Hands-free phone calls have been shown to cause additional risk, much more so than just talking to a passenger (there are a number of reasons why this is so, some of it is the brutal compression from the codec reducing intelligibility added to the limited audio bandwidth also reducing intelligibility, which means more mental effort must be spent on a phone call than just talking to a passenger). Using a hands free phone at 60 mph might be less likely to be a factor in a crash than going on Instagram heads down on a hand held phone in a traffic jam, but risk = probability x consequences and the consequences of having a distraction incident at 60 mph will be more severe even if the probability is lower.

  I think we don’t take driving as seriously as we should, we put vulnerable 3rd party road users in a lot of danger by not devoting our full attention to driving. Everyone Mikey catches quite honestly deserves what they got - if they can’t take driving seriously they need to have their driving licences taken away. If you can’t resist the temptation to use your phone turn the damn thing off and put it in your bag in the back seat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s driving Cycling Mikey, Britain’s most hated cyclist?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Well I stand corrected on 2 way radios (one of those differences between Manx and English law - I know first hand that 2 way radios have to be hands-free here).

  Have any of those Pinner v Everett cases been for mobile phone use, or similar? Or has it all been to do with drink driving - certainly the list of citations that site gives for free were all about failure to provide a sample. Drink driving is a completely different kettle of fish because you can prove an offence on someone not in a car if you’ve observed them driving five minutes ago, because you remain over the limit for a considerable period of time. Given how many driving offences are prosecuted, 131 cases since 1969 (over 50 years ago) is a vanishingly tiny proportion of cases.

  Lots of things “can” happen but a prosecution of someone for using a mobile phone in a layby with the keys out the ignition is has about as likely as my underwear teleporting one foot to the left unexpectedly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s driving Cycling Mikey, Britain’s most hated cyclist?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Under the law, if you pull into a lay-by, stop the car, turn off the engine, remove the key, and leave the car to take a phone call, you can still be charged and found guilty of using a phone “while driving”.

  Don’t be absurd. There is exactly one case where this was discussed and it was a suspected drink driver who had been observed to be driving and in motion (look up the case here: vlex.co.uk/vid/pinner-v-everett-793596681). There are exactly 0 prosecutions for driving offences for people who weren’t actually in their car and driving when the alleged offence took place.

  Also two way radios are banned if they are hand held. The rules are the same for two way radios - they must be hands-free.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s driving Cycling Mikey, Britain’s most hated cyclist?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  If people rely on driving for their work or independence, they should not be using their phones while driving. It’s not hard. A friend of mine is a train driver and you can imagine that being caught using your phone in that job is instant dismissal. His solution is to turn the phone off and put it in his bag, therefore there can be no temptation to use the phone and absolute proof in the case of an incident that phone usage wasn’t part of it. If a motorist can’t resist the temptation to use their phone, they should be doing the same.

  The overwhelming majority of people ‘caught’ by Mikey seem to be using social media, not taking urgent work calls.

  It is still dangerous to use the phone in traffic jams, because what phone users do while texting or doing Instagram is to be looking down while using their peripheral vision to see if traffic is moving, or even less. So they see a movement and move off, not having seen the pedestrian crossing through the gaps. I’ve witnessed a crash caused by such a distracted driver - albeit it was in Houston - the phone user next to us heard a car horn from behind and without looking just went and hit the car in front. Had there been someone crossing the road in front they would have been crushed.

  Being in a traffic jam is still actively driving.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘It all disappeared with Brexit’: Craft beer boom ends as more than 100 UK firms go bust⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  New duty rules:

  (1) it doesn’t penalize still cider (which tends to be the typical craft ciders), with even a strong still craft cider usually being below 8.4% abv.

  (2) plenty of craft beers <= 3.4% abv, e.g. milds, many bitters, and the highest rate doesn’t kick in until 8.5%. Nice beers don’t have to be strong.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘It all disappeared with Brexit’: Craft beer boom ends as more than 100 UK firms go bust⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m a bit skeptical of Brexit being significant here. Craft beer from small breweries generally isn’t exported, and often it doesn’t go that far from the area in which it’s brewed.

  All the other reasons listed (pandemic, cost of living crisis, tax rules etc) are plausible though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Most motorists want noise cameras installed to clamp down on loud cars⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  All motorists are loud. Cities aren’t loud, cars are loud. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTV-wwszGw8

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Most motorists want noise cameras installed to clamp down on loud cars⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s the inverse - the car is quiet for just one day, its MOT day. The owner will put the standard exhaust on for the MOT, then put the loud one back on once they have the MOT pass certificate in hand. Same thing with numberplates with odd spacing to make words. The owner will put a standard plate on for the MOT then swap it for their illegally spaced one once the MOT is done.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Clapham stabbing: Two men injured in homophobic attack⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Basically anyone who is measured greater than “Ignored” on the “Are you hated by the daily Mail” test - tomscott.com/…/are-you-hated-by-the-daily-mail/

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Plane crash lands in middle of busy A40⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Three main possibilities:

  • Engine failure after takeoff - turning back to the airport is known as the “impossible turn”. It isn’t quite impossible but it is difficult to execute successfully once you add on the startle factor. An incorrectly executed “impossible turn” usually results in a low altitude stall, which is normally fatal, so generally light aircraft pilots are trained to find somewhere to put it down directly in front of the aircraft.

  • Engine failure on approach to land - aircraft following the standard ‘3 degree glideslope’, this is too shallow of a glideslope for most aircraft to actually glide at without power so in the case of an engine failure the aircraft will end up short of the airfield.

  • Engine failure during cruise flight - aircraft diverted to EGBJ/Gloucestershire but didn’t have enough altitude to quite make it there. But this also gives the most time to look for a suitable paddock to put it down in.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Plane crash lands in middle of busy A40⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.

  However, I’m sure the CAA will want words with the pilot for selecting a road rather than a field to do the forced landing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is charging electric car at holiday house "theft"?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m sure the courts would agree it’s not theft, but it really is taking the piss: a typical UK home uses on the order of 10kWh per day - and an electric car can easily take 60kWh to charge. This isn’t like charging a mobile phone which is basically noise - it can mean someone staying for 5 days can easily end up using twice what the reasonable expectation for electricity use was.

  Having said that, if I were the owner of a holiday home, I’d probably install a proper electric car charger as a selling point and I’m sure it would be possible to set the daily rate for the property to cover the cost of charging a car.