danielquinn
@danielquinn@lemmy.ca
Canadian software engineer living in Europe.
- Comment on Green Party membership surges even higher as Labour loses a member every 10 minutes 1 day ago:
Welcome!
- Comment on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds | Season 4 Clip | Paramount+ (NYCC 2025) 6 days ago:
Am I the only one who thinks this might be a Caretaker reference?
- Comment on Record breaker Starmer is the 'most unpopular PM since polling began' 2 weeks ago:
It’s the expectation.
Boris and Truss were abject morons and Sunak was an insulated, rich Tory. They were expected to be terrible and so we weren’t surprised.
Starmer won in a landslide victory for Labour and went about screwing the poor, arresting old ladies, and presiding over genocide. Conservatives hate him because he’s on the Red Team, and the Left hate him because he acts like a Tory.
If he’d run as a Tory, he’d be scoring higher than everyone since Cameron, but he was supposed to fix the mess, not make it worse.
- Comment on Is Star Trek Discovery that bad? 3 weeks ago:
I agree 100% with this take and want to thank you for that excellent video! I’m not all the way through yet, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it.
- Comment on Polanski apologises over claim he can increase women’s breast sizes with his mind 3 weeks ago:
Hooray!
- Comment on Petition: Do not introduce Digital ID cards 3 weeks ago:
The opposition to id cards themeselves in this country is very strange to me. Most civilised countries have some sort of national identification number/card that can be used to access government services, and having worked inside the UK government, I can tell you what a total nightmare it is to develop services for Britons without such a unique id.
What kills me, is that inevitably the id card debate here seems to focus in on the existence of a card rather than what the government wants to attach include with it, like biometric data, or pairing it with an app with invasive permissions. You need an id number for me so that I can be identified when accessing government services, you don’t need to keep a record of every time I boarded a train or more surveillance nonsense.
This country is so used to government surveillance that they automatically assume that “id card means more tracking” rather than objecting to the tracking that already exists (have you seen Oxford Street?) and opposing an id that’d save the country mountains of cash and hassle if used properly.
- Comment on Zack Polanski urges UK to protect Gaza flotilla, as other countries risk war to resist Israeli impunity 3 weeks ago:
Fuck yes. More of this please.
- Comment on Just watched SNW 03.04 and that monologue by "Joni Gloss" about inspiring generations... it touched me 4 weeks ago:
Probably the only good moment in all of season 3 frankly.
- Comment on Green MP spots banned cluster bombs at London arms fair 5 weeks ago:
I downvoted this, largely because while you may have identified the photo correctly the way you’ve done so here makes it sound like Berry has made a mistake when there’s no evidence of that from the article.
From her X post (why the fuck are these people still on X?):
Confirmed by staff, and removed swiftly by event organisers.
- Comment on Israeli president’s planned visit to UK angers MPs 1 month ago:
Duck that. Roll out the red carpet for him and then chuck him in prison.
- Comment on Polanski apologises over claim he can increase women’s breast sizes with his mind 1 month ago:
Watch his recent interview with Channel 4. I think you might come around to him.
- Comment on Spelthorne Borough Council Public Space Protection Order 1 month ago:
With a name like “public space defence”, I honestly thought this would be about making spaces more friendly to the public, removing hostile architecture like skatestoppers and Camden benches, or replacing ads with public art, roads with bike infrastructure.
I’ve been living here 10 years. I really should know better by now.
- Comment on Overheated homes: why UK housing is dangerously unprepared for impact of climate crisis 2 months ago:
That is… nuts. Is your home listed or something or is this must the council being crazy?
- Comment on Overheated homes: why UK housing is dangerously unprepared for impact of climate crisis 2 months ago:
Yes and no. So long as the air temp outside is higher than the inside, you should close and shutter all windows regardless of the direct sunlight.
- Comment on Overheated homes: why UK housing is dangerously unprepared for impact of climate crisis 2 months ago:
Correct me if I’m wrong, but surely both are necessary parts of the solution given the trajectory we’re on?
Absolutely, but critically these don’t address heat. More importantly, swapping a gas boiler for a heat pump in a poorly insulated home will just result in wasted energy and cold/damp people.
In order to counter that we need an efficient way of moving heat from inside back out again without letting any more in, which is not something many houses in the UK can do today.
In 2025, most people in developed hot countries are using air conditioning in addition to everything else
While I can’t speak for the whole of warm countries, my wife’s family is Greek and we visit often, where air conditioning is surprisingly limited given the temperatures they endure. Instead you see shutters on windows, tile floors (with rugs they pull out for the winter), and tree cover that shields the home from the outside. That’s not to say that AC isn’t common, it is, and rolling out solar everywhere is a great way to deal with that. My only objection is to the common refrain of “more heat pumps” without acknowledging that most homes in this country are so poorly insulated that any temperature regulation is lost unless it’s constant.
- Comment on Overheated homes: why UK housing is dangerously unprepared for impact of climate crisis 2 months ago:
Neither of those things address the problem of heat, and they don’t even address the cold due to the sorry state of most homes in the country.
The problem is insulation. It keeps the heat in in the winter (making a heat pump viable) and the heat out in the summer. British homes are largely horrendous on this front, so much so that we used to have a whole protest group called Insulate Britain devoted to the issue. In keeping with the British pattern of arresting and ignoring protestors however, they were widely demonised by media and politicians.
But they were right.
Another problem is just design. People in hot countries use shutters on the outside of the house to block out the sun. Pretty much every house here only has curtains, so the sun comes through the window and heats up the air between the window and curtains, which then circulates around the room.
Finally, the last problem is education. Too many people in this country have no idea how to deal with heat. Our neighbours were actually complaining about how well insulated our homes are because they hadn’t figured out that you’re supposed to keep the blinds and windows closed during the day and open them only at night.
- Comment on The Most Popular Baby Names From the Past Year Have Officially Been Announced 2 months ago:
I think the real take away here is that in 2024, more people named their kid “Awesome” than “Cuthbert”.
- Comment on AI is already impacting the labor market, starting with young tech workers, Goldman economist says 2 months ago:
To be fair, an LLM can generate a bunch of bug-ridden code lacking any context that I’ll have to fix in review as well as any junior dev.
…of course unlike a junior dev, LLMs don’t learn from their mistakes. What they’re doing here is raising my salary and removing future seniors from the hiring pool.
- Comment on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 | SDCC Surprise 2 months ago:
The high seas have you covered!
- Comment on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Season 4 | SDCC Surprise 2 months ago:
- Comment on Macron plan to recognise Palestine puts pressure on Keir Starmer to pick a side 2 months ago:
I just don’t think he’s capable of picking the right side though.
- Comment on UK police hold pro-Palestine protester, 80, for almost 27 hours and search house 2 months ago:
Under the Terrorism Act the friends face a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. Sorrell said: “I just feel if I’m put in prison for this, and even if I die in prison for this, I can’t think of a better thing to die for really than for the justice of the people who’ve been persecuted now for almost my lifetime.”
Godsdamn this woman is a hero.
- Comment on Labour MP claims it'd cost "Upwards of £100bn to Nationalise Water". He is an extremely smart man. Why does he lie like this? 2 months ago:
Just fine then £100bn, and declare them forfeit when they refuse to pay.
- Comment on Social media incentivised spread of Southport misinformation, MPs say 3 months ago:
Was it “social media” or was it specific tech companies trading rage for clicks? I find it hard to believe that Mastodon & Lemmy would be comparable to X & Facebook in this area.
- Comment on Rightwing campaigners claim there is covert deal to return Parthenon marbles 3 months ago:
Yes. It would.
- Comment on Rightwing campaigners claim there is covert deal to return Parthenon marbles 3 months ago:
I should hope that they’re right. We should return what was stolen.
- Comment on Labour housing plans could destroy 215,000 hectares of nature in England, analysis shows 3 months ago:
You do not need to pave green space to build homes. There’s plenty of paved, ugly, low-density areas in desperate need of upgrades. The problem is the British public’s obsession with that idea that everyone needs their own patch of grass and two cars.
- Comment on Jeremy Corbyn confirms new ‘socialist alternative’ before next election to fight Starmer 3 months ago:
Hell yeah.
- Comment on Does anybody actually care that a dude chanted "Death, Death to the IDF" at Glastonbury? 3 months ago:
Personally I think it’s fantastic and long overdue. Hating genociders is finally “cool” and I am 100% here for it.
- Comment on Google could be forced to change UK search as watchdog takes steps 3 months ago:
So don’t break Chrome and Android out the company, just force them to harass users with another popup? I’m sure this will do wonders for choice on the web. /s