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Ah, privatisation! That wonderful treatment that has worked miracles with our energy supplies, water and sewage treatment systems, trains, bus services, social housing, care sector and more… at least it has for the fat cat shareholder. But not for the staff, the end users or the country as a whole.
Perhaps instead of merely trying to emulate another country’s apparent performance, however you care to measure it, we look at what can be improved. The increasing use of agency staff, for instance. Instead of consultants and privatisation hawks we ask people who work/have worked in the system. It’s an old-fashioned idea but one that invariably works better than being ripped off by snakes in suits who borrow your watch to tell you the time.
I’d consider the staffing/agency staff problem should be given a higher priority to fix as it’s surely a huge waste of money. The NHS has been hit very hard with a combination of COVID burn-out of staff and also the Brexit shenanigans (a sizable proportion of NHS employees were from other countries), so in order to provide their mandated staffing levels, they have to pay for expensive agency staff. That money is essentially wasted as ideally the staff would be compensated sufficiently that there’s a big enough pool of employees to draw from, but why would people want to work for the NHS when they’re not being paid enough? (For the record, Mrs HawkinsPeter is an NHS employee).
I had two ‘open’ holes on the frame of an old Dawes I bought second-hand, one halfway down each fork. I tried to find bolts that fitted but couldn’t, finally gave up and just put a blob of Sugru over each one. YMMV.Another vote for Sugru.
My Genesis has a frame hole for the rear brake hose and Di2 cable and it originally came with a two-part plastic plug with the appropriate holes, but it ended up breaking. My LBS fitted replacements when they serviced it, but the replacement broke within a week or so which I think is to do with the brake hose moving when hitting the rear brake, so I used Sugru instead. When I next took it into the LBS, I asked the mechanic about it as they’d left it in place which surprised me as I asked them to replace the Di2 cable as I’d damaged it a bit. He said it was a known issue with the plastic cover and thought my Sugru fix was as good as any other solution so he’d dutifully threaded the cable through it and left it in place.
The Last of Us on Sky/Now.TBH the story in the game was very good so it would definitely make a good show if done right. The slight changes to the story improve it as well. The cast currently seems spot on as well.
My only problem as someone who has run through the game multiple times is I can currently guess each episodes content and where it will end (unless they really make changes).
Only seen the first episode so far, but enjoyed it. I only played about a couple of minutes of the game, but noticed that the series didn’t have Joel continually running into a fence and then dying.
Has anyone else watched “Extraordinary” on Disney+ yet? The premise is a cross between something like Derry Girls crossed with My Hero Academia (with just a hint of one my favourite films: Mystery Men).Nope, but shall put it on my list (currently watching Alice in Borderland which is a bit up and down). I only saw a trailer for it yesterday and thought it looked like it was trying too hard to be contemporary, but that’s just a trailer. I’ll give it a go as I also rate Mystery Men/
Almost finished season one. I’m not sure why but I actually thought it was another similar Cold Cases or New Tricks show from a partial trailer so hadn’t planned on watching it until mentioned here.Hope you’re enjoying it. We’ve just finished season 2 (well second time watching for me), so I’m looking for something else now.
In case no-one’s mentioned it, The White Lotus is a brilliant dark comedy. Murray Bartlett is superb as the manager in season one and Jennifer Coolidge is brilliant in both seasons.
Any thoughts on Rick and Morty being recast due to their creator and voice artist being accused of domestic abuse? How would that even work? Surely we’d notice the difference?Seems like that’ll be a classic shark jumping moment if they do that. I thought the last season wasn’t as good as previous ones, so maybe it’s run its course and they should just bin it rather than trying to prolong it. I feel sorry for Dan Harmon though – maybe he can keep it going by himself.
There’s some details on the
There’s some details on the Bay Bridge pile-up investigation here:
The Model S decided to merge into the fast lane, turning a left blinker on, then moved there and started sudden deceleration to a speed of 7 mph as if being pulled over, causing vehicles behind it to bump or crash into each other. The Tesla itself escaped relatively unscathed, as well as the driver, but some of the vehicles coming behind it couldn’t react in the fast lane on time and slammed into the last cars in the pileup at significant speed. Some observers argued that a recently installed warning light at the beginning of the tunnel may have been mistaken for a traffic light, while subsequent media efforts to recreate the FSD confusion at the exact same place didn’t pan out.
There isn’t a car made with full autopilot. Tesla states in their manuals and at the dealership autopilot mode requires driver supervison; your hand/s must be on the steering wheel.Although it’s promoted specifically as “Full Self Driving”. There’s also some suggestions that the FSD mode disengages before crashing with only a second or two for the driver to take over so that Tesla can claim that it wasn’t the FSD that crashed, but the driver not having sufficient supervision.
It’s astonishing that their
It’s astonishing that their “Full Self Driving” mode is allowed on public streets as it seems very much like alpha quality software with multiple flaws. I don’t know if FSD mode is allowed on UK roads, but I hope it isn’t.
I think Tesla is basically pulling a fast one on their customers as they advertise it as “Full Self Driving”, but with the proviso that the driver has to stay alert and focussed to take over at any point that the software may give up (typically just before crashing).
I had the opportunity to travel in a colleague’s Tesla the other week and it’s concerning just how flaky the detection algorithms seem to be. You can see a representation of the software’s interpretation of the surroundings on the console tablet and it’s always shifting around and changing which doesn’t inspire confidence. It seems to get very confused by white lines, but had a fixation with black bins for some reason – it picked out all the black bins on the pavements.
You must read them. As SteveK correctly says: they’re brilliant.I think I should, but I know I’ll have Gary Oldman’s voice in my head whilst reading them.
Steve K wrote:
Oh, I think he could. (As an aside, I know TS’s brother a little, but never met Tim himself)
Maybe, but I’m a Gary Oldman fan and his Jackson Lamb is just rivetting and amusing. Haven’t read the books though so I don’t know if he’s accurate to the character.
The character Gary Oldman plays was – in the novels – described as looking like Timothy Spall (back in the day, before TS lost a lot of weight).I don’t think Timothy Spall would swear as convincingly (and amusingly) as Gary Oldman.
My next reccomendation(s) for those with access to Apple TV (or Pirate Bay)Severance. Approach this with very little pre-knowledge if possible. It will explain the basic concept early on in the show, then introduce lots of exploring of it with just a hint of weirdness for no obvious reasons. The last episode had us on the edge of our seats for the entire 45 minutes.
And if you do take Apple TV trial to watch this, also watch Ted Lasso. You don’t need to know anything about football be able to watch it (it was made for American audiences remember) but very funny AND surprisingly emotional as well. You can go from tears in your eyes from laughter to continued tears for sadness in a minute or two.
Severance is just brilliant. I’d also give a strong recommendation of Slow Horses – it’s got Gary Oldman doing an inverse Columbo at MI5 (he’s similarly scruffy with a filthy raincoat and a super sharp mind, but rather than being polite and charming, he’s rude and horrible). It does kind of disturb me that the main actor just keeps reminding me of Simon Pegg.
yep but its not a very scientific method, thats all, and of course the study gets pushed as “A study has shown…” and I would say no it hasnt.I think it could be improved by altering the questions to make the alternatives have similar outcomes (I’m thinking of the property left in public one) and maybe have a variety of word substitutions, so that there’s a baseline of people’s reactions to other topics too. e.g. “Risk is a natural part of squirrel wrangling, and anybody squirrel wrangling has to accept that they could be seriously injured”.
It came from a pulpit.That’ll be preaching then