United Kingdom VII: Taking Pride in Your Success

[wakka]

Oh no, that's terrible. ****.

[cutmymilk]

Awful, awful news. Licensed gun owing incel apparently. Who exactly does these background checks?

[fuse]

The incident itself is awful beyond belief, but what's really boiling my blood is the coverage of it. I've seen so many major outlets lead with the name of the offender, a nice close-up profile picture, his self-applied title from a YouTube video... all the things that even as a member of the public, you know should be avoided to prevent creating some kind of anti-hero pin-up.

[Dogg Thang]

Yep. Every single time, experts say not to do that and yet here we are again.

[teddymeow]

Our government is an absolute self serving bunch of right wing chancers

FTFY.

[Neon Ignition]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/13/manchester-pride-to-launch-review-after-row-over-funding-cuts

Manchester Pride accepts to having a review launched after a row kicks off following its axing of support to two long standing charities yet bumping up it bosses pay by £20K.
No need for a review, Pride stopped being a cause highlighter and instead became a commercial profit based business years ago. Nothing said to be open and accepting more than the installation of metal fence barriers around the area so inflated admission fees could be charged. Needs to be overhauled to refocus on its priorities.

[Neon Ignition]

Just to bring us back to an old topic - electric cars

We're 8 years away from the point where petrol and diesel car sales end having had the deadline brought forward by 10 years.

How is that not going to sink the automotive industry in the UK? The number of charge points needed everywhere is clearly not happening at the scale it needs to be. They need to be in place now - say it's 2027 and you struggle to access a charge point, you're going to buy a fuel car which you might own for years because if the charge access situation doesn't change then neither will your car. Likewise, if we get to 2029 and it's not in place you're essentially looking at vast waves of the market moving to second hand and the new car market shrinking to a fraction of its size.

I imagine electric car sales are going to increase heavily over the next few years but the target they're set seems self-harming given the lack of momentum to meet the infrastructure realities.

[Dogg Thang]

How have you lived among humans for so long yet think that a target further away would in any way motivate the auto industry to take action now to put the necessary pieces in place for that change? It’s like with climate change itself. People will only act when it is imminent. When it has gone past the point where they can ignore it. It’s an issue that needs to be forced, not just allowed to dawdle along at the pace of the auto industry who, like almost every industry, resists change as it’s default.

[QualityChimp]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...r-funding-cuts
Manchester Pride accepts to having a review launched after a row kicks off following its axing of support to two long standing charities yet bumping up it bosses pay by £20K.
No need for a review, Pride stopped being a cause highlighter and instead became a commercial profit based business years ago. Nothing said to be open and accepting more than the installation of metal fence barriers around the area so inflated admission fees could be charged. Needs to be overhauled to refocus on its priorities.

Pride was a bit weird this year. It's now a month long and really commercial.
Strangest tie-in I saw was this:

[QualityChimp]

I'd love an electric car, but it's just not practical yet.

If I need to recharge at work, how the hell would I do it?
They going to let me drape power cables across the car park?

If it becomes commonplace, let's say the boss gets one, which gets a charging point put in, everyone will be fighting over it.

They're not going to put a load in because they're not likely to want to pay for the electricity to charge 100 cars!

I drove 400+ miles this week before needing a refuel and it took minutes. I didn't need to sit around halfway waiting for it to recharge.

Plus I'm constantly on edge when my phone is under 20% battery, I can't deal with the additional stress of wondering if I'll get home!

[Dogg Thang]

Again, all just things that need to be pushed. The natural pace of those things is stupidly slow but things happen when they are suitably motivated. As an unrelated example, our industries here and our government are pretty much inept at everything. Nothing can actually get done and you’ll hear a million reasons why that is the case. But when they had the idea to bill people more for water and potentially then privatise the water, they installed meters into the ground outside every single home in the country in a matter of a few weeks. End of that story was people refused to pay and now they are sitting there useless but, when sufficiently motivated, things can happen.

Issues like these need a push. A hard push.

[Lebowski]

I'd love an electric car, but it's just not practical yet.

If I need to recharge at work, how the hell would I do it?
They going to let me drape power cables across the car park?

If it becomes commonplace, let's say the boss gets one, which gets a charging point put in, everyone will be fighting over it.

They're not going to put a load in because they're not likely to want to pay for the electricity to charge 100 cars!

I drove 400+ miles this week before needing a refuel and it took minutes. I didn't need to sit around halfway waiting for it to recharge.

Plus I'm constantly on edge when my phone is under 20% battery, I can't deal with the additional stress of wondering if I'll get home!

can you imagine the conversations in the office we regularly have people asking for changing cables for phones but for cars,

"hi has anyone got a 30 foot charging cable for a Ford i can borrow? forgot to put my car on charge last night and its down to 5%"

[QualityChimp]

Again, all just things that need to be pushed. The natural pace of those things is stupidly slow but things happen when they are suitably motivated. As an unrelated example, our industries here and our government are pretty much inept at everything. Nothing can actually get done and you’ll hear a million reasons why that is the case. But when they had the idea to bill people more for water and potentially then privatise the water, they installed meters into the ground outside every single home in the country in a matter of a few weeks. End of that story was people refused to pay and now they are sitting there useless but, when sufficiently motivated, things can happen.

Issues like these need a push. A hard push.

Someone needs to whisper in Johnson's ear "You and your mates could make a mint from installing charging bays. Nah, they don't need to work, you just need to be able to say in PMQs that you've installed them to any single question aimed at you. Reckon I could get you some totty to shag if that'll sweeten the deal?"

[fishbowlhead]

Hydrogen is the only way forward, it can use the existing infrastructure and takes the same time to refuel.

There isn’t even enough lithium on the planet to cover even 10% of existing vehicles if they all went electric today.

The whole thing just isn’t being planned whatsoever and the gov seem to think its all just going to fit nicely together. This all should of been set in stone 40 years ago.

[QualityChimp]

Hydrogen is the only way forward

Imagine cars powered by hot air. Each PMQs would power the nation's car for weeks!

My economics teacher was convinced that the Arab royal families had plans for water-powered cars and when the oil runs out, these plans will miraculously appear.

He was also convinced that Gillette had in their vaults a cream that stops stubble growing, but they make more money from selling blades than stopping stubble growing.

I think he's possibly right, though!