danielquinn

@danielquinn@lemmy.ca

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨School food standards pilot in England cuts meal uptake by 15%⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This has got to be the dumbest take on this sorry one could possibly have. Shame on the Guardian for publishing it so uncritically.

  There are zero downsides to the public for a healthy school lunch mandate. Pointing out that some kids would rather eat garbage for lunch does not mean that the government should pay for that.

  If the government is paying to feed kids, then it should be paying for healthy food. If some parents would rather feed their kids deep fried crap well… you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.

  I’d wager that the “concern” these companies (why do we have private companies in charge of feeding school kids again?) is really based on the fact that these meals are more expensive and so it cuts into their margin.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are homes left empty in the UK and how can we fill them up?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Those are reasons why it’s not being addressed effectively, not why the problem exists in the first place.

  • Are these homes bought for investment that can’t sell for the amounts the owners want?
  • Were they inherited and being held unsold due to being tied up legally?
  • Are they unsuitable for human habitation, either because of neglect or changing regulation?
  • Are they simply temporarily empty due to “housing purchase chain” problems?
  • Is the market undervalued?
  • Has some rich supervillain bought up a few million homes just because he hates poor people that much?

  The article proposes a question and then fails to answer it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are homes left empty in the UK and how can we fill them up?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  An article titled “why are homes left empty…” doesn’t answer the question.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tucker Carlson slams UK's Palestine Action ban, calls Keir Starmer 'enslaved'⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  While he’s right in this case, calling him a “prominent American journalist” is as inaccurate as his usual “reporting”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Give all UK households a set amount of subsidised energy, says thinktank⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Agreed. Despite appearances, subsidies like this don’t help the public, they’re just giving cash to energy companies with extra steps. Long-term planning on the other hand makes a lot more sense for the public, while sending less money to the energy companies.

  I wonder how many of those companies are involved with that think tank.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Video] British journalist Steve Sweeney bombed by Israel while reporting in Lebanon⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Is there a more reputable source other than RT? In the age of deepfakes, it’s reasonable to require evidence from trusted sources. RT is not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Man in UK charged with crimes against humanity in Syria⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Excellent. Now do IDF soldiers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are the Greens and Reform Replacing Labour and the Conservatives?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Or… (and bare with me here) generations of establishment parties doing fuck all for the people while burning the world, backing a genocide, and insisting that everything was fine because “line goes up”.

  Support for Labour and the Conservatives fell apart when both parties decided that they didn’t care about the same things the electorate do. There’s no nuance missing. They gave up and expected us all to fall in line. We aren’t, and now they’re acting confused as to where their support went.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Green Party wins Gorton and Denton by-election with Labour pushed into third by Reform⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d say that it’s for a few reasons:

  1. In this country’s broken electoral system, “tactical” voting is quite common. Until now, Labour has been heavily relying on the idea that they’ll be elected by default: the not-Conservative choice. When Reform ate the Tories’ lunch, they continued to push that they were “the only party that can beat Reform”. This result suggests that this reasoning no longer applies and indicates that Labour’s dominance as an alternative to the right-wing forces in the UK is ending.
  2. By pushing the traditional parties into 3rd, 4th, and 5th place, this election may mark the end of these guys in favour of the new challenger parties theatre both advocating for more direct action to combat the problems we have.
  3. Reform took 2nd, consuming the Tory vote almost entirely indicating that they’re the force to beat. This makes the relegations of #1 all the more relevant for those of us who think that Reform are dangerous fanatics.
  4. The Greens are unabashedly socialists and this result indicates that their position is resonating with voters far more than Labour’s “Tory light” platform. When the “labour” party gets spanked by a party that’s advocating for wealth taxes, that’s a Big Deal™.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Green Party wins Gorton and Denton by-election with Labour pushed into third by Reform⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s the really encouraging part of all this: Green is looking like the tactical choice now :-)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Green Party wins Gorton and Denton by-election with Labour pushed into third by Reform⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t ruin this for me :-)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Green Party wins Gorton and Denton by-election with Labour pushed into third by Reform⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I just think it’s hilarious that Labour has for years been leaning on this “the Greens split the vote” line. Now that the shoe’s on the other foot, I’m betting they feel differently.

• Green Party wins Gorton and Denton by-election with Labour pushed into third by Reformwww.bbc.com ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨unitedkingdom@feddit.uk⁩ | ⁨44⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Guardian joins media coalition to protect original journalism from unpaid use by AI⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The Guardian has effectively got rid of 100 journalists. We actually leave the building next week. And shortly afterwards, it signed a syndication deal with OpenAI. Or as I think of it, it married its rapist

  That’s from the tail end of Carole Cadwalladr’s excellent TED talk called This is What A Digital Coup Looks Like.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Eurovision 2026: Electronic artist and YouTuber Look Mum No Computer to represent UK in Vienna - BBC News⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We shouldn’t be in Eurovision. If the UK had any self respect, we’d be boycotting it like Iceland, Ireland, The Netherlands, Spain, and Slovenia.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Brushing fraud: Britons told to beware of mystery parcels as new scam soars⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  All the pearl-clutching about how the product you receive may not adhere to good quality standards ignores the fact that “legitimate” companies like Hobbycraft were selling asbestos-laden products to kids right out of the brick random offer stores until about a month ago.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Abolishing trial by jury: why is the government overlooking the obvious?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is just an attempt to avoid jury nullification verdicts on cases like Palestine Action and JSO.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x04 "Vox in Excelso"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I really didn’t care for this one.

  The premise of the debate was flawed from the start. The Federation has an obligation to offer help, but there’s no requirement anywhere that it must compel another race to accept that help. Indeed many, many episodes have gone out of their way to point this out. So the whole idea of a “debate” was pointless. Of course they should offer the help, but that’s the end of any moral or legal responsibility. Doing anything more would itself be unethical.

  Interestingly as an aside, I found this whole prospect very American at its root. Not only should we accept that we must offer help, but of course we must compel these people to accept our idea of help. It stinks of regime change from without and I find the idea that the Federation would ever work this way ridiculous.

  On top of that, we’re somehow supposed to pretend we didn’t all watch Esri Dax’s excellent critique of the Klingon Empire back on DS9 and instead accept that this lie of “conquest” is supposed to prop up the Klingon culture. Are we to believe that it’s been hundreds of years and the Empire is still built in lies they tell each other about honour and battle? Instead of showing any hint of evolution (and potentially stoking internal conflict at the idea of accepting charity from an enemy), we just had a 5 minute “battle” and it’s all ok now.

  This wasn’t even a respectful battle. No blood was spilt by either side, no sacrifices made. Where is the honour in that? It was a mock battle to preserve a lie. Esri would not be amused.

• Asbestos found in children’s play sand sold in UKwww.theguardian.com ↗
  Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ to ⁨unitedkingdom@feddit.uk⁩ | ⁨5⁩ ⁨comments⁩
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK government targets VPNs in new online safety consultation as Lords vote for ban⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I will never get used to the comfort Britons appear to have with surveillance. I guess it’s time to set up a Wireguard instance of my own in the Netherlands to proxy everything through.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x01 "Kids These Days" & 1x02 "Beta Test"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Is anyone else concerned that they might making the same decision they did with Discovery and making the series into “Star Trek: Caleb Mir”? At this point, everyone else already feel like background singers to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Israelis demonised as a ‘vehicle for hatred of Jews’, says UK terror laws watchdog⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d say it’s worse than that. If someone looks at a protest opposing genocide and they take from that that they’re antisemitic, then they’re essentially starting from a position of “Jews = genociders” which is pretty fucking antisemitic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Toward the end of 2024, Adam Something posted a brilliant video called “Why Centrism Won’t Survive 2025” and he made a very convincing case. Toward the end, he lays into Starmer’s Labour specifically, though he doesn’t predict the rise of the Greens here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Creating apps like Signal or WhatsApp could be 'hostile activity,' claims UK watchdog⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This has to be the standard response to these sorts of claims. I would love to see a Labour MP try to respond to this on Question Time for example.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Met police agree to pay £7,500 to woman arrested over Gaza protest placard⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Israel: what a cuntry”

  Witty. I like it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Polling lead by age group, November 2025⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Jesus, the discrepancy between the Green vote among the young and old is… horrifying.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Andrew will be banished from royal premises to King Charles' private and remote Sandringham estate⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Oh no! Not Sandringham!” - Andrew, probably.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scientists have been studying remote work for four years and have reached a very clear conclusion: “Working from home makes us thrive”⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the phrase “time theft”, but I largely agree. The real benefit of hybrid work is flexibility, and I’d never want to take that away from anyone. I just object to the constant parroting of this lie that remote necessarily means more productive. I’ve never seen it, but I’ve seen many many cases of the opposite.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scientists have been studying remote work for four years and have reached a very clear conclusion: “Working from home makes us thrive”⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Working from home sucks. Yeah I said it.

  I’m a software engineer, and yes, there are days that working from home really does help with concentration and focus on a particular project, but unless you’re a contractor, tasked with “build this and come back when it’s finished”, building anything is typically a collaborative process. You know what sucks for collaboration? Working from home.

  There are no tools that can sufficiently replace what the office offers: interaction, chance conversation, camaraderie and socialising with the people with whom you’re trying to build The Thing. It’s why people still go to actual conferences and no one cares about gigantic Zoom calls masquerading as real interaction. Slack sucks, Jira sucks, Teams suuuuuuucks. They’ll do in a pinch, but they’ll never offer real collaboration. For that, you still have to be in the same building.

  That’s not to say that offering remote work isn’t great. There are people who work best in isolation, but that’s not all of us. I’d argue that it isn’t even most of us, and headlines like this “working from home makes us thrive” aren’t helping. They’re objectively bullshit. Having been in software development for 25 years, I can categorically state that the more remote the team I’ve been in, the less organised, the more disjointed and disconnected it is.

  And don’t get me started on the whole “overemployment” trend, where people try to hold down two jobs by doing neither well at all. Yet another “perk” of remote work I guess.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Green Party membership surges even higher as Labour loses a member every 10 minutes⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Welcome!