GreatAlbatross
@GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk
- Submitted 3 days ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 4 comments
- Comment on Temperatures surpass 29C as UK heads for heatwave 3 days ago:
I should probably write a bot to auto-reply when someone pulls a state as a comparison.
(Or ask the resident flamingo nicely to write it 😀)I’ll put the gist of why hot weather can be a pain in the UK so it’s in the thread, not aimed at you obviously:
- Most housing was built around coping with -5 to 25’c comfortably.
Which for a long time meant no insulation, and a fire/wet central heating system.
And not a damn was given about air-tightness. - A lot of the housing pre-dates WW1
- Air conditioning was not commonplace at all when the majority of houses were built (you could argue it still isn’t)
- Heatwaves were so infrequent, it wasn’t worth the cost of installing air conditioning domestically.
- It gets muggy as hell, with the high humidity making it worse. (But again, it’s variable, so tricky to justify spending money)
- Swamp coolers don’t work due to the humidity
- Lots of people grew up with the weather being (generally) mild enough that opening a window to get airflow was enough to keep cool. (I’ve had family members open the windows on a 30’ day to “cool” my 20’ basement…)
- Leccy is expensive. This is improving with solar and plunge pricing, but most people will want to tighten up their house in other ways before spending £8/day cooling it.
With both our warming climate, and more kit being installed, things are changing, and people are adapting.
More people now understand that cooling the fabric of the house at night when it dips into the teens, then closing the windows in the morning, is a better way to keep it cool.
Building regulations stipulate significantly more insulation, air-tightness, heat gain control.
And air conditioning has dropped in price a lot.
For anyone curious, you can DIY a mini-split for about £500/room, or get a better quality one installed for under £2000. - Most housing was built around coping with -5 to 25’c comfortably.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 days ago:
Going back to the source, the quote is: " LIVERPOOL are the UK’s cryptocurrency connoisseurs - with one in 10 (13%) regularly investing and checking their online stocks"
I’m not sure if they’ve bundled regular market investment with crypto.
- Comment on HS2 to be delayed again as costs spiral by £37bn after 'litany of failure' 4 days ago:
Terminal 5 was an absolute masterclass in how to deliver a megaproject.
HS2 is, unfortunately, just another magnitude of complexity.It also doesn’t help that HS2 got massively underestimated to get political approval and shovels in the ground. (The flipside being, if it had gone with realistic estimates, it could well have been stuck in committee for until 2050)
- Comment on England faces 5 billion litre public water shortage by 2055 without urgent action 6 days ago:
It’s fine though: They’ve just asked for freedom from liability. And I’m sure they’re going to use that power to build a reservoir or something…
- Comment on Sizewell C power station to be built as part of UK’s £14bn nuclear investment 1 week ago:
The important thing is, they’re using SMRs.
Megaprojects can go off the rails of time/budget because people try to make them special, bespoke, unique.
“Nothing like this has ever been done before!” When really, you want your project to be like lego: Lots of standard parts (or at least, mass-produced for your project) that connect together to make a larger whole.
SMRs mean more common parts, and more modular building. Build the first, build the second faster, learn from mistakes, etc. - Comment on Bidders demand Thames Water granted immunity over environmental crimes 2 weeks ago:
Is that not inevitable once this round of vultures pick at the carcass some more anyway?
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 6 comments
- Comment on Existential dread 2 weeks ago:
One step closer to The Fifth Element every day.
- Comment on The NHS gave £330 million contract to Palantir to build an NHS data platform. Well we've found out that most English hospitals aren't using it. 5 weeks ago:
It’s a well-known tune.
“How much will it cost to do this internally?” ‘£50 million, and we’d need to commit to staff to maintain it. But then we’d own it, and it would be about as financially efficient as possible’ “OK, this big company says they can do a basic version for £49m, and with the first year of support for free” ‘That won’t even do half of it. And they’ll just ramp the cost up later’ “No, this is a good plan, we should use the free market to efficiently do these things”
The project then becomes £330m once the private company quotes up including all the essentials that weren’t in the original quote, but the wheels are already turning, so it happens
- Comment on UK Minister accused of being too close to big tech after rise in meetings 5 weeks ago:
This was my query: Are these meetings butter-up luncheons?
Or simply a minister attending meetings that are part of their job. - Submitted 5 weeks ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 7 comments
- Fly-tippers’ vehicles to be crushed in bid to save England from ‘avalanche of rubbish’www.theguardian.com ↗Submitted 1 month ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 8 comments
- Comment on Britain's state-owned energy company will not be allowed to use solar panels linked to Chinese slave labour, under changes to government plans 1 month ago:
With the right investment into production automation, and classifying energy generation as a national security factor, I could see us building our own at prices that make sense.
The real kicker I guess is going to be the supply of rare earths required. - Comment on Heat pumps to be sold ‘smart-ready’ in plans to save households money 1 month ago:
not flash enough to make their Instagram account about renovating the house which I have been advised not to read as they are horrible people with bad taste
I’ll take “slapping grey paint on every surface, then fitting grey laminate flooring and black gloss worktops for $500, Alex”.
That, and painting over every patch of damp with tanking rather than actually fixing it.
- Comment on Heat pumps to be sold ‘smart-ready’ in plans to save households money 1 month ago:
I like to rant about this, but it is possible to insulate old properties without causing damp and mould.
It requires understanding of how the materials work (breathability, etc), and more expensive materials, so it’s often difficult to get it done for a reasonable price. - Comment on Heat pumps to be sold ‘smart-ready’ in plans to save households money 1 month ago:
‘You’ll need new radiators, and ideally more insulation’
“Utterly unworkable, now fit me a new gas boiler” - Comment on Beachfront property 2 months ago:
I’ve genuinely considered moving there.
They have a radio station, and it’s run by the chillest guy ever. Just playing tunes, and chatting between.
- Comment on Anyone else over April Fools being an extension of companies R&D depts 2 months ago:
Hell yeah buddy. Here at feddit.us, we love april fools.
- Comment on Police launch urgent search after girl, 11, falls into River Thames 2 months ago:
It varies by county too.
Cornwall does a shitload of swimming lessons, plus all the beach safety stuff (what the flags mean, how to spot/escape a rip, slip/slop/slap) - Comment on Millions of Britons brace for across-the-board bill rises in ‘awful April’ 2 months ago:
At least your water bill isn’t the best part of £1000 so the company involved can pay dividends…
- Comment on Virgin Physicists 2 months ago:
Sounds like a 6 ohm resistor solution.
- Comment on PC gamers spend 92% of their time on older games, oh and there are apparently 908 million of us now 2 months ago:
I can agree with this: All the hype around KCD:2 led me to buying/playing KCD:1
- Comment on The landlord special 3 months ago:
This is why I end up doing so much DIY.
A job that takes a professional half a day could take me a whole weekend.
But having to play “how likely are they to fuck it up, and how much of a pain will it be to fix” drives me up the wall so much, I often just buy the tool and do it myself.My time to do it: 15 hours, plus £200 in materials.
Cheap tradesman, 8 hours, £450 total, non-zero chance I’ll have to rip it out and re-do it myself anyway.
Specialist tradesman time to do it: 5 hours, £900-1200 total.So it either ends up being lots of work, a gamble, or lots of money. Quick, good, cheap, pick two!
- Comment on Andrew and Tristan Tate leave Romania, sources tell BBC - live updates 3 months ago:
Or they’re used as a bargaining chip by the US.
- Comment on Andrew and Tristan Tate leave Romania, sources tell BBC - live updates 3 months ago:
New cabinet pick for the US on its way, I guess.
- Submitted 3 months ago to unitedkingdom@feddit.uk | 12 comments
- Comment on Busses with LED advertising on the side. 4 months ago:
Like the arena in my area that keeps lights on all night (apparently to help the grass grow), while causing shitloads of light pollution. Why are there even regulations for grass quality? A bit of random pitch variance might make football interesting.
- Comment on We've increased our subscription from $9.99 to $29.99 a month 4 months ago:
“We realised we could use the same neural pathways that rabies does. Isn’t it lovely when nature saves a large corporation development money?”
- Comment on Not enough teachers, children turned away: Schools 'can't cope' with population boom 4 months ago:
100% agree on this. The societal backstops get underpaid, then every other resource comes crashing down on them.
Honestly, I’d consider teaching, and probably wouldn’t even mind doing the pastoral side of things, if it just paid OK, and wasn’t treated like “wow, you get to teach? And you get 6 weeks off in summer? Lucky!”