tankplanker
@tankplanker@lemmy.world
- Comment on Students in England now graduate with average debt of £53,000, data shows 1 day ago:
People will blame Nick Cleggs Lib Dems for this and yeah they play a big part in this, but the root cause is further back.
Tony Blair removed the cap on the number of students who could go to university which lead to introducing tuition fees. Before then you used to get a grant, I got three grand a year, to go to university.
Suddenly universities could massively increase the number places so they did. This lead to spiralling costs, which lead to fees going up and loans had to go up to cover this. They also borrowed heavily to expand.
David Cameron removed the cap on fees while increasing the money students could borrow with Cleggs backing (against a key Lib Dem manifesto pledge fucking the Lib Dems for years after) and Universities started getting properly greedy.
Inflation kicked in but the loans available to students didn’t because the government couldn’t afford to, majority of students never pay back the full amount before its written off. Student loan book is set to be a trillion pounds in about 20 years.
The whole situation is fucked because Blair said anyone could go, rather than being honest about what we could afford to pay for. Now we have a ticking timebomb that someone’s going to have to pay.
- Comment on Angela Rayner: I’ve taken all sorts — but we won’t legalise cannabis 1 day ago:
It would cost them votes with a certain group of voters who would make this a capital offence if they could.
It doesn’t really impact MPs, see the studies into drug use at the HoP or even this articles headline, so why bother risking losing important votes in swing seats? If the police started throwing MPs in jail for drug use then you’d see something done quite quickly.
Much like a lot of these wedge issues such as abortion there are a few nutters in the HoP who are rabidly opposed to it on moral grounds and a few whose husbands own legal medical cannabis farms who frankly don’t want the competition.
- Comment on BYD is testing solid-state EV batteries in its Seal sedan with nearly 1,200 miles of range 2 days ago:
PHEV for certain situations is still the best choice, but its more a limitation of the charging infrastructure than anything else. In some countries this is not a quick problem to solve so PHEV has a use for quite some time.
PHEV was very much a stop gap when batteries were even more expensive, performed by third parties (so losing that profit margin as well) and production limited so they reduced the size of the battery to keep the car affordable. Long term they are a dead end outside of specialised use cases.
A lot of PHEV owners do not bother to charge regularly as the small battery needs daily charging.
They have higher engine wear due to the engine being used more aggressively when cold as battery was used for the start of the journey.
You are also carrying around an entire ev and an entire ice, with additional complexity to meld the two together. It’s just not smart design, KISS after all.
I much prefer range extending engines like on the i3 that act as direct generators as a concept for properly remote travel. Although the tech is far far from perfect and advances in battery, such as these solid state batteries, look to make it superfluous.
- Comment on BYD is testing solid-state EV batteries in its Seal sedan with nearly 1,200 miles of range 2 days ago:
If you can charge at home especially on solar they make so much sense. I would not switch back for any ICE as my main car even if i was gifted a non returnable Ferrari lease.
- Comment on BYD is testing solid-state EV batteries in its Seal sedan with nearly 1,200 miles of range 2 days ago:
So most petrol pumps do about 38l a minute for cars, even in a car with a big tank that’s less than 2 minutes. Now you have to pay, either before or after depending on the pump, 5 minutes if you have to go in a bit less if you can pay at the pump. 7 minutes max assuming no queues?
I just do not see charging to be even in the same ball park unless:
All cars and chargers support OCPP so you just have to plug the car in and it starts charging no messing with apps or payment cards.
Batteries reduce in size with the increasing efficiency so you are charging less kw but this does not impact charging speed as at the moment more cells means more speed for longer.
People accept that charging to 100% when trying to charge quickly just isn’t going to work, the last few percent are always going to be much slower. It’s quicker to charge twice to 80/85% than once to 100%
Best time can do currently is about 40kw in 18 minutes, even with halving the amount to charge its going to be 10 minutes but then its only adding about 160 miles of range. We’d need to get to double that of range for most people, pretty significant jump.
Personally I’m happy having to stop for twenty minutes or so for a comfort break for me while it charges every three hours or so. Not having to go to the petrol station while at home is also a massive perk.
- Comment on What's the e-reader you would buy if you were in the market? 4 days ago:
I love my pocketbook colour three. The extra screensize is very much appreciated for comics
- Comment on WHERE ARE MY PRECISION SCREWDRIVERS 3 weeks ago:
I can snap the heads of cheaply made screws or ones made from softer material like “brass” with a screwdriver let alone an impact driver.
If I am doing something with a lot of screws, say decking, then I will spend more on my screws simply because I want better quality if I am going to be fitting a few hundred in a day. I also want to know that if I come back to it in a few years that the screw will unscrew quickly when I come to it. Sure it can be a significant cost increase but the time and frustration saved makes it back.
Quality screwdrivers like Vessel Megadora or Wera or Swisstools or similar tend to cam out less than the pack of ten you got from the dollar store. Same with the hex bits for your impact or drill driver.
Last test I heard had Roberson above Torx for reducing cam out, but if you camming Torx that easily I would just switch to an actual bolt if it needs that much torque to tighten.
- Comment on What's your ideal TV series length and style? 3 weeks ago:
For me a lot depends on how well they can sustain the writing over the season. Some of the longer running seasons, hell, even some shorter seasons had episodes that are clearly filler because they had a fixed quota of episodes but not quite enough script and/or budget to cover all of them to the same standard.
I think most people will be familiar with the Breaking Bad episode Fly, which is the worst rated by some margin on the entire show. It had its budget stolen for the episodes around it, and frankly it sucks. It would have been better if they just went one episode less that season. This is why I am in favor of the show only having enough episodes that it can actually sustain with great content, and may be that number varies season to season.
Monster of the week shows like Buffy that have a season long big story arc and usually single shot weekly stories it is even more important not to over do it with poor quality filler. and over stretch the big story arc to the point it becomes boring.
- Comment on The Telegraph has deleted the seemingly made-up article 4 weeks ago:
Getting to a good university is only part of the battle and the real prize is the job afterwards. Having a big network is what helps with the latter.
Take law, even at Oxbridge only about 10% of students on that course at either university get into a training contract to become a solicitor. Its closer to 1% at normal universities.
Getting onto that training contract is knowing how to present yourself to the right contacts and go to the right events.
Many subjects are like this, especially for the top jobs.
- Comment on I'm gay and I dunno what it means 4 weeks ago:
I think you helped me crack it, i think it’s saying that the person who looks like you but puts in more effort to their appearance on the regular is more attractive. That makes sense to me, and would be true in the main for most people, it’s one of the most common things said to people who are struggling to find partners.
You could take negative connotations from that about that person being vain but really it should be on the cheater for being a fucking cheater.
- Comment on Thanks to the american FPTP voting system, Nigel Farage could obtain an absolute majority with a minority of the votes 5 weeks ago:
They and the Torys are inveterate gamblers who every couple of decades win a huge number of seats as Labour did at the last election and that hope that they can win big every time rather than playing the odds properly.
This is coupled with wanting to lock out smaller parties like the Lib Dems, but that doesn’t really work for Tory adjacent parties like Reform when seat boundaries have been gerrymandered by the Tories to such a degree that a small shift in certain seats can win the election.
- Comment on Pearson complaining about using Linux to access my course material 1 month ago:
Yeah its a super paranoid process, I would just rather take a traditional person exam
- Comment on Pearson complaining about using Linux to access my course material 1 month ago:
Question difficulty makes no difference whatsoever with proxying, these are already long form questions in the main. The whole point of it is you are paying somebody else to take the exam for you, either directly by something like screen sharing or indirectly by relaying questions and answers. The AI voice assistant is another form of this, its higher risk as LLMs aren’t always right but its still proxying.
I personally know of half a dozen people who used Cheggs to indirectly proxy their engineering degree exams as they weren’t proctored and had 12/24 hour exam window. The uni was meant to require an in person defense of similar questions from anybody getting unusual results, something people who cheat simply cannot do, but because they had done it the whole way through they never triggered the flag. This is why proctoring is so important.
One of the reasons so many companies use Pearsons for their exams is because they have centers everywhere, they are by far the largest. If you cannot do it online then you have to go to your nearest center. Simply too much cheating is attempted otherwise. As always the actions of a minority ruin it for everybody else as rules have to be put in place.
- Comment on Pearson complaining about using Linux to access my course material 1 month ago:
Yup, exactly that. You are not allowed to proceed if you have additional devices including your mobile visible during the setup phase, you have to sweep the area with your webcam so they can see. When the exam is proctored if they see a phone or anything suspicious that you introduced into the frame you are generally fucked and have to go through a review.
Pearsons run a lot of different exams on behalf of a lot of different companies so the rules change depending on what that company wants and will pay for.
I know of one that you have to connect with your webcam and again with your phone camera so the phone can capture from behind you.This is one is live proctored by a real person throughout, it is pretty damn expensive so its not the norm. Many are just at the start and end, with AI triggers and random sampling to find cheaters.
I know of another than limits how many screens you can have connected to just one, this is principally to reduce the chance of a IP KVM being used for proxying. Its trivial for the software to detect how many displays are connected, same with number of HID devices.
I think you are underestimating how much cheating is attempted with these, and how much they have already been through the loop of being able to detect it.
- Comment on The Biggest Box Office Bombs of 2024 1 month ago:
So these costs do not appear to include the often massive marketing costs that can run into tens if not hundreds of millions for big blockbusters? Unless I am missing something.
- Comment on Pearson complaining about using Linux to access my course material 1 month ago:
Nope as you have to show the room before the exam starts andusing the second computer shows up in the webcam. It’s what the webcam if for.
- Comment on Pearson complaining about using Linux to access my course material 1 month ago:
So, in principle, I agree, but it doesn’t help with proxying, or for example, one I saw this week of someone using AI voice assistant to answer questions. Or people copying and pasting from online groups.
Their shitty software monitors all the connected devices, running processes, and webcam. That’s still needed for open book.
- Comment on Pearson complaining about using Linux to access my course material 1 month ago:
Does it have online exams? Pearsons shitty anti cheat stuff they use for proctoring is windows and mac only.
Having seen how much people cheat including using someone else using screensharing to proxy the exam for you I cannot blame them for wanting to do this, but I do blame them for not wanting to support Linux properly.
- Comment on Yvette Cooper ‘open to EU youth mobility scheme’ 1 month ago:
This will be hilarious if it goes through. Imagine the scenes when a certain pro Brexit demographic that has always been the priority for government policies suddenly doesn’t get preferential treatment at the airport for their month in Spain every winter yet “millennials” do.
(Yes I am are the youngest Millennials are 28, its part of the joke)
- Comment on What TV show were you highly excited for, but ended up quickly disappointing you? 2 months ago:
Lore is complicated as if you aren’t familiar with the letters, silmarillion and appendices to an insane degree, some things that look right are wrong, and some things that look wrong are actually right depending on what you count in cannon.
I think this sums it up for me as the only bits actuallyin the lore:
The existence of characters named Galadriel, Elrond, Durin, Sauron, Isildur, Elendil, Celebrimbor, some of the others
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The existence of Numenor and Middle-Earth and some of the places in it
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The existence of rings of power
The armour just highlights what I mean with its lazy approach to just about everything.
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- Comment on What TV show were you highly excited for, but ended up quickly disappointing you? 2 months ago:
They already have enough clout to be put in charge of a decent budget tv show, so their idea must have sucked something terrible if they can’t get it made without slapping a license onto it
Just make the damn thing you paid to make not your shitty show you can’t get anybody else to buy.
- Comment on What TV show were you highly excited for, but ended up quickly disappointing you? 2 months ago:
“I’m commander shepard, and halo is my favourite tv show on the citadel.”
Wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if that turned out to be the case.
- Comment on What TV show were you highly excited for, but ended up quickly disappointing you? 2 months ago:
Rings of Power.
I am going to caveat this with I know it has some fans, and if you enjoy this series more power to you, but I fucking hate it and that’s also fine.
I think it just twists the lore while being badly written regardless of source material, and often looking incredibly low rent despite having a stupidly high budget, while the cast is patchy, its like they saw the Hobbit films and decided that was moving in the right direction while LotR got it totally wrong. I think its sheer stubbornness that’s keeping this show running despite its return on views vs. budget at this point.
Halo.
Its completely out of character for Master Chief to face reveal and had a sex scene, neither is the worst thing with this show either. I get that actors do not like non face roles, see Pedro with Mandalorian, but it should be deal breaker for casting for such roles.
- Comment on What TV show were you highly excited for, but ended up quickly disappointing you? 2 months ago:
It was very clear that they had no respect for the source material and just wanted to make their own show but this was the only way it was getting funded. Then to double down and insult the fan base was just beyond dumb.
- Comment on What TV show were you highly excited for, but ended up quickly disappointing you? 2 months ago:
I viewed the TV show like a YA drama and it came across a lot better because of it.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Do they speak Spanish? The English version of them make no effort to learn to speak Spanish, or integrate outside their own communities, then make videos about people doing that who go to England.
- Comment on Minecraft movie spawns ‘annoying’ cinema trend that viewers claim ‘ruins’ the film 2 months ago:
Born to be a creeper
- Comment on What Can We Do to Get Youth into Ham Radio? 2 months ago:
Yeah, they usually have me changing band as I want well away from that, i don’t want them hopping across.if I stay there But even just unprobalamtic farmers chat ain’t going to be appealing to most kids.
- Comment on What Can We Do to Get Youth into Ham Radio? 2 months ago:
Make clubs accessible for younger people again. Lots of clubs became old man’s clubs that aren’t where kids want to hang out. Clubs are a great way to get access to gear without having to buy it and be able to use it via the club license(s).
I think showing the different types of communications available, including sat coms is helpful. Not everyone wants to ragchew with old men.
- Comment on Why can’t HVAC be made smarter? 2 months ago:
With a thermostat, smart or dumb, you set a target temperature and a time. With a dumb thermostat it waits till that time and then activates. With a smart thermostat it should learn how long it takes to heat or cool to that target temperature in certain conditions and then aims to hit the target at that point.
So if you got up at 8am and wanted it 20c with a dumb thermostat you got to work out when it needs to go on in order to hit that as no heating system is instant on something the size of a house, with a smart thermostat with learning you do not need to do that at all, just set it for 8am.
As no system is working in a vacuum how hot or cool it is outside, even how sunny it is, has a big impact on how quickly your system heats or cools. Being able to measure and compensate for the outside temperature means the actual start time can be adjusted for you. This can save significant amount of cash.
As an example, lets say the outside temperature was going to be -10c 6am till 8am and you wanted it 20c by 8am. Doing it with a dumb thermostat you would either have to live with an under or overshoot on temperature. Say next day its 2C, now you need to adjust your overshoot again. With a smart thermostat I do not need to do that at all.
Sure, you can just live with the under/overshoot, but its better for your bills and better for the environment not to.
