|
Zephro posted:London needs either high-density, high-quality high rise housing like you get in East Asia, where each block has an underground car park, shops on the ground floor, pools and gyms on the first few and then 30 floors of flats above, or it needs medium-rise 4-6 storey courtyarded apartments like you get in places like Oslo, Amsterdam and Vienna. gently caress the car parks. Don't need those.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 18:51 |
|
|
# ? Jun 8, 2024 21:33 |
|
Where am I supposed to deal drugs from if there's no carpark? (realpostin': I'd love to not have to take my bicycle upstairs)
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 18:57 |
|
Zephro posted:London needs either high-density, high-quality high rise housing like you get in East Asia
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 19:01 |
|
I wish I could remember the name of that place that got demolished, I think it was in Hong Kong, but it was basically like a solid block of debris, old high rises, and humanity, all interconnected and built into itself. They tore it down a while ago. But it's one hell of a form of people-storage.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 19:05 |
|
OwlFancier posted:I wish I could remember the name of that place that got demolished, I think it was in Hong Kong, but it was basically like a solid block of debris, old high rises, and humanity, all interconnected and built into itself. Kowloon Walled City?
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 19:06 |
|
Robhol posted:Kowloon Walled City? That's the one! I remember that they turned it into a park.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 19:08 |
|
notaspy posted:The loving suck on so many other levels but from a purely fiscal standpoint they aren't so bad. How so? It's the state borrowing money and paying back at a high rate of interest, instead of borrowing money and paying back at a low rate of interest. It's nice for governments because it's basically off the balance sheet, so they can act like they're being fiscally conservative - when really they're committing the state to a future deficit so private finance can cream some profits. That has to come out of future spending, except when governments want to be 'fiscally conservative' and they're unwilling to increase spending to fund these interest payments, so it has to come out of hospitals' budgets etc. It's like a large corporation with established lines of credit and funding sources deciding to invest in planned development, but they go to Wonga instead And don't forget: quote:However, because of banks' unwillingness to lend money for PFI projects, the UK government now had to fund the so-called 'private' finance initiative itself. In March 2009 it was announced that the Treasury would lend £2bn of public money to private firms building schools and other projects under PFI.[19] Labour's Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper, claimed the loans should ensure that projects worth £13bn — including waste treatment projects, environmental schemes and schools — would not be delayed or cancelled. She also promised that the loans would be temporary and would be repaid at a commercial rate. PFI - no need to fund projects ourselves, we'll just pay lots of interest! Oh looks like we do need to fund it after all, still paying that interest though! Gotta subsidise that middleman industry
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 19:32 |
|
But they're the government. Politely apologies and say it just didn't work out. Refuse to pay anymore and if they cause a fuss send the army in to murder them and anyone they know. What's hard about this?
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 19:48 |
|
Regarde Aduck posted:But they're the government. Politely apologies and say it just didn't work out. Refuse to pay anymore and if they cause a fuss send the army in to murder them and anyone they know. The bit where you try to get other people to do business with you after you're done unilaterally cancelling contracts, appropriating property, and murdering.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 19:54 |
LemonDrizzle posted:The bit where you try to get other people to do business with you after you're done unilaterally cancelling contracts, appropriating property, and murdering. Then you use the army to force them to do business with you
|
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 19:55 |
|
LemonDrizzle posted:you will never take my family home + pied a terre + ski lodge + country retreat!!1! "Ordinary middle-class families..."
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 19:58 |
|
awesome-express posted:I'm not saying that other parts of Britain are hell holes full of misery and suffering, but I personally prefer London to other parts of Britain that I've lived in (Edinburgh for one). That and all the cool tech-poo poo happens here anyway. Uh most of the real tech poo poo is in Cambridge. Not that housing there's a bed of roses, either.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 20:03 |
feedmegin posted:Uh most of the real tech poo poo is in Cambridge. Not that housing there's a bed of roses, either. You're just being . A lot of tech poo poo is in both places, as well as Oxford. I'm pretty sure there are more workers in the tech sector in London, but Cambridge is bigger for poo poo like biotech.
|
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 20:07 |
|
LemonDrizzle posted:The bit where you try to get other people to do business with you after you're done unilaterally cancelling contracts, appropriating property, and murdering. This is why an executive who fucks up and destroys his company will never get a job in the industry again.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 20:11 |
|
LemonDrizzle posted:The bit where you try to get other people to do business with you after you're done unilaterally cancelling contracts, appropriating property, and murdering. Actually, there's a post up there that states that the MoD did in fact rip up a batshit PFI contract. So, I guess having the British Army staring you down does wonders for co-operation.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 20:17 |
|
kingturnip posted:Actually, there's a post up there that states that the MoD did in fact rip up a batshit PFI contract. And people complain about Imperial foreign policy.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 20:18 |
|
LemonDrizzle posted:The bit where you try to get other people to do business with you after you're done unilaterally cancelling contracts, appropriating property, and murdering. Funnily enough business and especially finance are the areas least likely to give a gently caress, as decisions are based on hard calculations of risk and return instead of morals and principles and pride But the point is it shouldn't even be necessary to involve private finance, incredibly wealthy and strong economies can borrow at ridiculously low costs, and invest that money on improving the country and improving its future economic prospects. Things like PFI produce the same outcome except it costs the state a hell of a lot more. Poor financial decisions and heavier liabilities like that should be what scares ~the markets~
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 20:22 |
|
How often is fear a rational thing? Argh, no matter how much I try to keep it in mind it still just won't fit in my head that I live in a universe where possibly the greatest factor in the proper functioning of society across the globe is whether people with lots of money wake up feeling good in the morning.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 21:05 |
|
OwlFancier posted:How often is fear a rational thing? If you want to think the same thoughts but with overtones of "laffo what the heck am I even reading" rather than "" you should check out BBC news' technology page, after the gadget updates and Internet news it's just wall to wall ROBOT APOCALYPSE e/ if this seems completely perpendicular to your post that's because it sort of is, my point is that you definitely shouldn't think about it too much if you want to remain at least moderately functional Renaissance Robot fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jan 29, 2015 |
# ? Jan 29, 2015 21:27 |
|
OwlFancier posted:I wish I could remember the name of that place that got demolished, I think it was in Hong Kong, but it was basically like a solid block of debris, old high rises, and humanity, all interconnected and built into itself. Kowloon City was pretty impressive. (Sorry I couldn't find a more hi res version of this image.) quote:Despite its daunting, squalid appearance and reputation for lawlessness, many of Kowloon Walled City's former inhabitants remember it fondly. It may have been the City of Darkness to outsiders, but to thousands who called it home, it was a friendly, tight knit community that was poor but generally happy.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 22:00 |
|
Here's the source for that graphic, with a higher res version.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 22:06 |
|
OwlFancier posted:How often is fear a rational thing? It's not even that though, national borrowing involves large institutional investors deciding where to put their capital (they have to put it somewhere, it has to take some form) and the UK has long been seen as a safe haven, which is why our yields are so low. It's not exactly the kind of high risk high stakes investment that has people twitching to sell at the top of the market So when they talk about the market getting 'spooked' what they really mean is institutions like credit rating agencies deciding the UK isn't 'business friendly' enough, or that debt is bad and other countries are relatively less naughty about it, and giving us a black mark which makes our borrowing a bit higher. There isn't actually any danger we'll default and that people won't get their returns. More a case of bad priorities and a need for ratings agencies to justify their own existence e- I think someone posted this in here once? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lby9P3ms11w baka kaba fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Jan 29, 2015 |
# ? Jan 29, 2015 22:06 |
|
Thanks for that! I have another table breakingly massive cutaway diagram of it, but it's annotated in Chinese.
|
# ? Jan 29, 2015 22:21 |
|
For context, where it says that monthly room rent was $35HK, that's just under £3. I'm amazed that it actually got so big that it affected flight paths. Keeping the power cables on the outside of the building is a pretty decent solution, at least.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 00:02 |
|
Disinterested posted:You're just being . A lot of tech poo poo is in both places, as well as Oxford. I'm pretty sure there are more workers in the tech sector in London, but Cambridge is bigger for poo poo like biotech. And, uh, ARM. That's designed the CPU in pretty much every mobile phone worldwide. And Microsoft Research. And Sinclair Research of ZX Spectrum fame back in the day. And Acorn Computer. In so far as this country has a Silicon Valley, it has for a long time now been Cambridge, not London or Oxford; there's some trendy .com stuff in Shoreditch but there's no guarantee it'll last past the next tech bust.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 00:13 |
|
Hijo Del Helmsley posted:For context, where it says that monthly room rent was $35HK, that's just under £3. £3 to live in a place with 40 square feet per person, or 3.72 square meters. HK's old airport was not exactly positioned with skyscrapers in mind. Imagine if you moved London City to the middle of present day Canary Wharf.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 00:21 |
feedmegin posted:And, uh, ARM. That's designed the CPU in pretty much every mobile phone worldwide. And Microsoft Research. And Sinclair Research of ZX Spectrum fame back in the day. And Acorn Computer. In so far as this country has a Silicon Valley, it has for a long time now been Cambridge, not London or Oxford; there's some trendy .com stuff in Shoreditch but there's no guarantee it'll last past the next tech bust. It just boils down to what kind of skills you have and who you want to work for. I'm not sure it's really meaningful to say Cambridge is ~so much better~, particularly since it isn't that cheap to live there either. Plus, if you wanted your home town to be a 'happening place', Cambridge is not exactly the best place to live.
|
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 00:31 |
|
There is also the entire M4 corridor it's not like you have to live somewhere obscenely expensive, just South expensive
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 01:13 |
|
mfcrocker posted:There is also the entire M4 corridor it's not like you have to live somewhere obscenely expensive, just South expensive Yeah, seriously, there's places other than London and Oxbridge doing tech.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 08:33 |
|
Hobo posted:Yeah, seriously, there's places other than London and Oxbridge doing tech. that's like saying there's places other than Oxford and Cambridge doing university education. Technically true, but you'd be better off not bothering.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 08:45 |
|
Oberleutnant posted:that's like saying there's places other than Oxford and Cambridge doing university education. Technically true, but you'd be better off not bothering. Did someone light the General China signal?
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 09:04 |
|
I definitely thought about this during the paris business seems like common sense. I noticed the beeb put a delay on their coverage but sky didn't. http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/jan/29/police-tv-live-coverage-terrorism-london
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 10:23 |
|
Oberleutnant posted:that's like saying there's places other than Oxford and Cambridge doing university education. Technically true, but you'd be better off not bothering. Well obviously. Why do a Bachelors anywhere else? In Cambridge and Oxford it comes with a free Masters. Such a ridiculous system.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 10:59 |
Sad Panda posted:Well obviously. Why do a Bachelors anywhere else? In Cambridge and Oxford it comes with a free Masters. Such a ridiculous system. It's not as though the master's means anything, or as if anyone takes it to be a real qualification. It just stems from an antequated method for passing on full membership of the university; it doesn't actually give any kind of advantage to the recipient. It's just an almost useless non-qualification that lets you vote for the next chancellor of the university. Disinterested fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Jan 30, 2015 |
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 11:03 |
|
But don't forget Cambridge give you the opportunity to get a super secret double first
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 11:29 |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hostgKc7qV4
|
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 11:31 |
|
Not UK but was on the BBC and interesting: Want to gain entry to your office, get on a bus, or perhaps buy a sandwich? At Epicenter, a new hi-tech office block in Sweden, they are trying a different approach - a chip under the skin. quote:Hannes Sjoblad, whose electronic business card is on his own chip and can be accessed with a swipe of a smartphone, has the title chief disruption officer at the development. But their argument/justification, at least, is that it's an experiment so that people can see first-hand what the technology is like and does, to raise awareness about a potential future in which governments and large corps want people chipped.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 12:22 |
|
Disinterested posted:It's not as though the master's means anything, or as if anyone takes it to be a real qualification. It just stems from an antequated method for passing on full membership of the university; it doesn't actually give any kind of advantage to the recipient. People do though. When you look through lawyers' CVs you can spot the berks because they all list it and also why you sometimes see trainees wringing their hands about getting an LLM or whatever to be able to compete. It's even more infuriating when they have an actual MA from there too (but somehow all the phds drop it ). You're thinking what kind of idiot would be influenced by that? The kind of idiot that does things so monumentally stupid that hiring someone who costs 100k to represent you in a trial represents a saving over what ever you would actually be made to pay if they found against you.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 12:25 |
|
They had a reporter getting chipped yesterday by what looked like a tattoo artist, and on the six o clock news you could make out the slogan 'of course it loving hurts' on the tattoo artist's T-shirt.
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 12:26 |
|
|
# ? Jun 8, 2024 21:33 |
Rolled Cabbage posted:People do though. When you look through lawyers' CVs you can spot the berks because they all list it and also why you sometimes see trainees wringing their hands about getting an LLM or whatever to be able to compete. It's even more infuriating when they have an actual MA from there too (but somehow all the phds drop it ). Worrying. I have one of these stupid degrees and I'm yet to witness it give me an advantage, but then again I don't work in a field where I can try to take advantage of people in that way.
|
|
# ? Jan 30, 2015 12:27 |