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UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

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Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do people in UK feel about the food shortages? Do they blame brexit?

I live in the UK and do not follow the news. I am not aware there is a food shortage!

Be careful not to read the news, your larder and fridge will suddenly be bare ...

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not enough. UK popular media reporting focuses on the supplier's blaming this on 'the weather', or energy prices in production countries [0][1][2][3]. No real discussion on how European shelves don't appear to have this problem. [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-64718826 [1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/feb/22/aldi-asda-m... [2] https://news.sky.com/story/tesco-and-aldi-to-ration-some-veg... [3] ht…

A big chunk of the problem is competition law preventing prices increasing in events like this. Supermarkets in France just increase the price for tomatoes for a few months and pay suppliers slightly more to get the stock they want. In the UK, competition law prevents jacking up the price during a supply interruption, meaning suppliers prefer to direct scarce goods to France instead, where they earn more. That makes…

The UK: the place where it is never the fault of Brexit but there is always an obscure and self-contradictory justification for crazy things that started happening the day after Brexit and that never happened before.

Today is the turn of competition laws that, we are told, don’t allow supermarkets to increase prices - while food inflation is in the double digits.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#113
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source that actually quotes the government document it references? Your link is just a rehash of an original piece which itself offers literally no evidence of it's accuracy. In point of fact, I searched further and found this[1]... >Fox News Digital could not verify the extent of the list of books, movies and shows flagged under the government program and the Home Office could not verify the existence…

William Shawcross's Independent Review of Prevent [0] has on page 24 > 3.46 While the products related to Islamist terrorism focus on the most serious material relating to violent Islamist ideology, mostly Islamic State and al-Qa’ida, much of the material covering Extreme Right-Wing falls well below the threshold for even non-violent extremism. > 3.47 This material tends to deal with broader themes and often covers c…

So, in other words, "No". I had already ctrl+f'd the Shawcross review document for specific titles referenced by Murray and others, and nothing was listed.

The more I read about this, the more it feels like far-right circles are seizing on your highlighted point and adding their own "details" (eg, Murray naming specific books), or spin, to push a narrative that supports them.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#114
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"off-season tomatoes" hasn't been a thing in decades. Tomatoes are available at affordable prices all year long.

Well, I would hardly call 10$/kilo affordable. Where I live ( France), at the height of the season, and assuming you live in the south, good tomato will cost about 2-3$/kilo. In winter you can indeed buy tomatoes (for more money) which look like tomatoes but are tasteless and are therefore a different kind of product. It might be possible to get good tomatoes as well, but I assume this will incur a significant premiu…

You should try canned tomatoes.

I sometimes use tomatoes for my winter dishes (pizza, Ukrainian borscht and Indian Dahl), it used to be terrible. I've since learned that most canned vegetables do not have anything added when canned (not even salt or similar, it's just hot water basically), changed to that, and now I cook almost as much in winter than I do during summer.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#115
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, we are great at sacrificing long term benefit for short term advantage. Apparently our ability to break various crypto systems was regarded as too sensitive. I believe we continued to break encrypted communications for some time after the war, including those of our allies. Would be interested if anyone knows of a good history of this aspect of post war Britain.

Sexism is apparently a big reason. Many of the early British computing experts were female. At some point it was "professionalised" and these skilled and experienced women were displaced by less skilled and less experienced men. Here's a New Statesman article about it: https://archive.is/zsijz

I've talked to a scientist couple who lived that !

Basically : women were obviously too dumb to do calculus (/s), they had to do discreet math. Then, the wife managed to pin down the characters the lab had to look for (it was statistics applied to biology/agriculture, before ADN was discovered). In the papers, only the couple family name appeared, no mention of 'madam', and it was declared once.

Fast forward two children later, she wants to come back to do science. Couldn't go back to the lab, refused to hire her. They both moved to another university who accept her to punch cards. She's a trained mathematician BTW. I think we're around 1965 or a bit later.

She basically take over the department. Every code has to go through her. The improvement in computation power make that if you want to make realists data models, it's way faster to use computers now. Even the husband has to go through his wife, before semi-joining the department (basically still a biologist specialized in population/genetics, but now he works with a lot of computers). A late child happens (71, my godfather), but this time the husband managed to keep her place. Then a bit later mainframes appears in the university , uni administration gains power over labs and departments, she is basically demoted to an advisory position (and the husband promoted to thesis master), and decide that she does not have to work for ungrateful bastard and just left before the transition to new computer is done, basically making all dependent departments loose multiple years.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many hours do you think the average US programmer works?

probably almost four to eight weeks more per year than the average British or European programmer. In the EU and UK most countries have about six weeks of mandatory paid time off per year, and strict limits on overtime work. Anecdotally from my own experience in the US I'd say Americans work probably about 20% more hours annually. Even people who had comparable vacation would often only take two weeks, and weekly hou…

I mean, I went from 11 weeks of PTO to 8 and I still have trouble adjusting 3 years later, I can't imagine having only 2.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#117
post #99
post #23

This is something that comes up time and time again with our recent string of conservative governments, going back to Cameron. At this point I'm pretty convinced that it is a dead cat strategy to avoid us talking about the lack of fruit and vegetables in the supermarkets. Or maybe I'm just being hopeful.

You really think that an issue as important as basic food supplies is going to be bumped out of the headlines by a tedious government consultation on internet governance?

That's exactly what's happening. I'm in the UK and I was unaware of the problem with our food supplies

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#118
post #31
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because 1) Turing wasn’t jailed and 2) The Government doesn’t put people in jail; that’s the courts.

Speaking from a US standpoint: 1. The legislature makes laws 2. The courts make judgements based on those laws 3. The police officers drag people into jail All 3 are part of the government.

In the UK, "the Government" is a phrase more akin to "the x Administration" (where x is the President) in the US; although technically it includes the parliamentary majority as well as the executive.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#119
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I would hardly call 10$/kilo affordable. Where I live ( France), at the height of the season, and assuming you live in the south, good tomato will cost about 2-3$/kilo. In winter you can indeed buy tomatoes (for more money) which look like tomatoes but are tasteless and are therefore a different kind of product. It might be possible to get good tomatoes as well, but I assume this will incur a significant premiu…

You should try canned tomatoes. I sometimes use tomatoes for my winter dishes (pizza, Ukrainian borscht and Indian Dahl), it used to be terrible. I've since learned that most canned vegetables do not have anything added when canned (not even salt or similar, it's just hot water basically), changed to that, and now I cook almost as much in winter than I do during summer.

This is very true, and what I do now. This doesn't work for all vegetables, but works really well with tomatoes.

Re: UK Proposes Even More Stupid Ideas for Directly Regulating the Internet

#120
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I would hardly call 10$/kilo affordable. Where I live ( France), at the height of the season, and assuming you live in the south, good tomato will cost about 2-3$/kilo. In winter you can indeed buy tomatoes (for more money) which look like tomatoes but are tasteless and are therefore a different kind of product. It might be possible to get good tomatoes as well, but I assume this will incur a significant premiu…

>Well, I would hardly call 10$/kilo affordable. They have always been affordable, now they are not

I understand what you mean, I may not have been very clear at all by adding product quality to the mix. So let me try again.

At least in France, there are price fluctuations : typically in season is 2 eur/kilo and off season is 4 eur/kilo (and these are current prices), which means twice as expensive.

My question to the poster living in Sweden was, given that we are in winter: are in-season tomatoes 10$/kilo as well, or is it only the case for off-season tomatoes, and in-season are still 5$/kilo, which, while expensive, is much more affordable ?

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