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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:You can and it's super easy because they don't ask for receipts.  e: 
Borrovan fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 13:34
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feedmegin posted:There were masses of unrepentent Nazis after WW2 - not a small minority at all, they just kept quiet about it in public. Pop into the Ask/Tell Milhist thread and ask there about how well denazification went in both postwar Germanies (spoilers, anyone who wasn't a bigwig and also not in a very important position like Chief Justice or something got to keep on doing exactly what they had been doing before). It's not til the 60s and 70s when their kids are all like 'daddy what did you do in the war' did the soulsearching you're talking about start to happen and it wasn't the alte kampfers doing it. Ok, point taken, but I was responding to the claim that every citizen who survived the Third Reich was, by definition, a Nazi, and was, as a result, completely unreformable. I don't doubt that the process was denazification was extremely traumatic and messy, but I think that's a very sus argument.
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Jan 28, 2022 13:34
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fuctifino posted:What a take.... He's such a stupid smug oval office.
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Jan 28, 2022 13:35
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Other countries may vary but I just assumed that the fact that the UK elite classes all attend the same handful of private schools and universities, and then all go and live/work in the same city where everything else of value in the country is kept,probably has something to do with why journalism (and certain other professions) are so uniquely poo poo here. Obviously posh people and private schools exist worldwide, but do other countries put all there posh people in the one place, or do they spread them around a bit. keep punching joe fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 13:35
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I lived in Germany in the 1970s and they were only just beginning to talk openly about WW2. There was one of those multi-part week by week magazine collections. My dad started getting it but it was all in German and my German wasn't that great. One of the things they did was to not allow school uniforms, never again to have children all uniformed up. (I don't know whether this is still the case). But we were jealous of the German kids wearing all kinds of multi-coloured tank tops and flared jeans to school while we were trussed up in strangulating collars and ties and hideous skirts. Borrovan posted:You can, I just did So what proof do you need that your employer asked you to work from home do they need or is it enough that living in Wales, WFH has been variously mandatory / highly advised?
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Jan 28, 2022 13:38
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UK and Ireland and Romania are about the only places in Europe that still do. Not sure if the local paper comments descend into shouting about adidașii whenever its brought up there.
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Jan 28, 2022 13:44
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JeremoudCorbynejad posted:You can and it's super easy because they don't ask for receipts. Thanks for this. I just submitted a claim and it was bizarrely easy, you just need to confirm your identity (if you don't already have an ID account) and enter a single date. Although it says they will respond before Nov 2021 so I dunno how that is gonna work
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Jan 28, 2022 13:45
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Payndz posted:"We don't want to change the system, we just want a turn in charge of it." The cycle is that the conservatives run up a huge national debt, sell everything off to their mates, and cover up the fact that they're doing all of this with sleaze, war and shock tactics against poor and marginalised targets. Same in the US as the UK. Then it gets too obvious, the debt is too high, and there's danger of things actually breaking. At this point the 'good guys' are elected and end up bringing in a bunch of unpopular measures to bring the debt down and minimise the visible sleaze. E: the difference between previous Labour leaders and keef is that previous leaders probably didn't realise this was happening or didn't think they had a choice. Keef knows and is a loving plant. The grown ups are applauded for being in charge, but the mechanisms don't change because the turds behind the scenes just lay low until the debt is paid off. Then the conservatives swoop back in criticising the taxes and public spending from the democrats / labour / lib dems who have been trying to fix the poo poo the cons broke (not very well, because they either can't or won't realise that the problem is liberal capitalism). But at least when democrats get in power in the US for example they tend to pay down the national debt* and be slightly less nakedly corrupt (It's similar in the UK but I'd be interested to see a breakdown that takes into account Blairism and things like PFI catching up to Brown etc). Still just 'twiddling with the dials on capitalism' as TF put it, but at least they're not turning all the dials to 11 and ignoring the screeching sounds from the motor. It's a neat trick though, because Labour is permitted to be the whipping boy for the tories. It's like the shitpost about me sowing / me reaping, except it's the tories going "ha ha ha yesss" for ten years and then occasionally Labour stepping in and being allowed to go "what the fuuuck." Again, I think previous leaderships have been unaware of this, whereas keef is actively and joyously playing the psychopatsy role. I think the thing that pisses me off the most is how absolutely hypocritical that last stage of the flip is and how every single time the same dumbasses come out of the woodwork to criticise the non-tory tories 'careless spending' and high taxes, and it loving works. People buy it every single time. This is why Corbyn's economic politicies were so interesting because rather than just being the bad guy and sensibly paying off the tory debt, he wanted to build an actual functioning government. He refused to play the 'good bad guy' role the capitalism loop demands, and it drove economically and politically illiterate people insane to the point that they honestly thought an alcoholic slab of spam wedged into a suit would be a better leader. * The second half of that link is hilarious, saying 'yeah but that was the aftermath of the great recession' without mentioning who or what caused the economic conditions that led to the recession - no, recessions are like hurricanes and earthquakes, they just happen sometimes. E: slight rewording for clarity + added keef Bobby Deluxe fucked around with this message at 14:29 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 13:56
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fuctifino posted:The establishment can get away with all of this poo poo because a significant percentage of the population has absolutely no idea how our political system and country works. To many, it's like supporting a football team or favourite contestant in Big Brother. I remember chatting with an old neighbour who, in his 50's, didn't understand the difference between local council and Westminster. "Councillors, MPs, Lords, it's all the same thing innit"... Which is what results in those 2019 voxpops of "Labour have been in charge for ages and this place is still poo poo, so I'm voting Tory to change things...." I've also had to explain to people the difference between local elections, general elections and by-elections, and you don't vote for Prime Ministers. There were people in Peterborough who genuinely thought that Labour winning the by-election in 2019 meant that Jermbemy Crobin was now Prime Minister and were then very confused when they had to vote again a few weeks later.
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Jan 28, 2022 14:00
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Guavanaut posted:UK and Ireland and Romania are about the only places in Europe that still do. The Vatican has no data available, and I'm not sure if that's reassuring or worrying
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Jan 28, 2022 14:01
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:So what proof do you need that your employer asked you to work from home do they need or is it enough that living in Wales, WFH has been variously mandatory / highly advised? You don't need proof, you can just do it - it doesn't ask for anything.
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Jan 28, 2022 14:02
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ThomasPaine posted:Is Britain's contemporary press an outlier or have we always had a journo class that does no real journalism but just repeats whatever their (usually govt) sources say verbatim with no critical analysis before clocking off at midday and going down the pub? Is this normal in the rest of the world? Do people in say France laugh at us or is this just standard practice in most countries? Flat Earth News is a little long in the tooth now but it sets out pretty well the process by which a press with some extremely scummy elements transformed itself into one tiny solid brick of absolute scum. I'd imagine the process is the same everywhere but in various steps along the path, as it's all the usual captialism consolidate/underpay/condense stuff.
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Jan 28, 2022 14:03
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'Landlords have the power now': London rental market descends into Wild West of bidding wars.quote:A year ago, London buy-to-let landlords were grappling with 30pc rent drops and a desert of empty properties as lockdown triggered an exodus to the suburbs. The wife and I have been looking around north london for a 3 bed to move to now there's babby #2 and we've outgrown our flat. Better just quit I guess! kecske fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 14:06
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Q not E etc.
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Jan 28, 2022 14:07
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Prole posted:Which company is this? I'm dealing with Keller Lenkner and they seem to be going down the GDPR route and seeking damages for process breaches. Some company called Angelus Law, it’s just very weird phrasing (prob shouldn’t post it in ‘public’?) American media are sometimes even worse for stenography:  But I do think there is more actually good reporting in the US amongst the ocean of poo poo. So much of our supposedly decent media is actually absolute garbage and our journalist class is way more incestuous and twitter diseased.
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Jan 28, 2022 14:07
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Danger - Octopus! posted:You don't need proof, you can just do it - it doesn't ask for anything. I actually had a bit of a panic doing mine (before seeing JeremoudCorbynejad's post) because it asked for when you started working from home, but then doesn't have an option to say "but then I stopped for a bit & started again", so went back & carefully read through everything & concluded that yeh if you've done a single day at home you're good. Should make a tidy few hundred quid all in all (much needed, jfc I didn't realise how expensive childcare is)
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Jan 28, 2022 14:14
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fuctifino posted:To many, it's like supporting a football team or favourite contestant in Big Brother. I've had a lot of conversations with extended family after elections asking if I regretted voting labour because they lost. I feel like there are a lot of people who have the cause / effect backwards and are just voting for the one they think is most likely to win so that they can also win by-proxy.
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Jan 28, 2022 14:19
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Borrovan posted:(much needed, jfc I didn't realise how expensive childcare is)
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Jan 28, 2022 14:23
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I think honestly a lot of people look at it like gambling. You pick a colour and then if your team wins then you win and you feel good (even if the team and managers in question have made it very clear they intend to use you as the ball). This rings true. You also see the idea that "no one wants to vote for losers", which is completely backwards and self-fullfilling - apparently the way parties prove they are dynamic, popular, high-acheiving go-getters who are worthy of your vote is by winning elections. Policy or ideology doesn't seem to factor into it. Which might explain a lot...
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Jan 28, 2022 14:25
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Gah, quote isn't edit. Have a cat: 
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Jan 28, 2022 14:25
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Borrovan posted:Just realised this is a good place to ask: does anyone know where I can find a good benefits calculator, or a charity that can help work this stuff out? Situation's a bit complicated, since I'm earning decent money but also technically a student & disabled, my partner's on a fully funded PhD (only counts as work/income where that disadvantages you, generally), & the baby's an unemployed scrounger who still owes me £20 from the birth certificate The gov.uk site is usually pretty good at walking through everything that does/doesn't affect your benefits. Other than that, MoneySavingExpert is a good resource for all sorts of things. https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/benefits-check/
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Jan 28, 2022 14:35
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Borrovan posted:Just realised this is a good place to ask: does anyone know where I can find a good benefits calculator, or a charity that can help work this stuff out? Situation's a bit complicated, since I'm earning decent money but also technically a student & disabled, my partner's on a fully funded PhD (only counts as work/income where that disadvantages you, generally), & the baby's an unemployed scrounger who still owes me £20 from the birth certificate I didn't know how good I had it doing a fully funded PhD, getting a good salary without any income tax, in addition to council tax discounts and student prices on everything, and being completely autonomous with no obligations to work to anyone else's schedule. I dream of living the life like that one more time in the future but I probably never will. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWHNVwxJEeU ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 14:36
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ThomasPaine posted:I didn't know how good I had it doing a fully funded PhD, getting a good salary without any income tax, in addition to council tax discounts and student prices on everything, and being completely autonomous with no obligations to work to anyone else's schedule. I dream of living the life like that one more time in the future but I probably never will. gently caress that hits so loving close Ironically, though, my phd is, like, the last fuckin' time I'd ever wanna go back to lol
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Jan 28, 2022 14:45
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Borrovan posted:Yep Are you sure about that? I was under the impression you got tax relief on £6 pweek which works out at around £1.20pw (can't remember what the exact tax rate is right now and can't be arsed to google) so only about £62.40 for a full year. I don't think you get £6 pw. If I'm wrong, please let me know! I claim £10 pw I think it is for my self-employed bits n bobs (mounting losses to offset against the day I actually make a profit!), so not sure how the two might clash. Anyway, I'll pass the WFH tip on to my colleagues even if I don't do it.
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Jan 28, 2022 14:46
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ThomasPaine posted:I didn't know how good I had it doing a fully funded PhD, getting a good salary without any income tax, in addition to council tax discounts and student prices on everything, and being completely autonomous with no obligations to work to anyone else's schedule. I dream of living the life like that one more time in the future but I probably never will. LOL I love limmy Dunno if there's a time in my life I'd rather go back to though. I liked uni for the constant parting and hanging out with friends but i was extremely stressed and going insane I think a few of my friends miss school days but I hated school I miss having all my friends nearby, if we all still lived together life would be grand, as is its still pretty good
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Jan 28, 2022 14:50
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Kurt Vonnegut posted:Where is home? I've wondered where home is, and I realized, it's not Mars or someplace like that, it's Indianapolis when I was nine years old. I had a brother and a sister, a cat and a dog, and a mother and a father and uncles and aunts. And there's no way I can get there again. 2002-2006 or so is home for me, and always will be, I fear Wasn't much of a fan of the before and definitely not a fan of the after
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Jan 28, 2022 14:53
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I'd go back to uni days for sure. I really didn't appreciate it or make the most of it at the time. And if I went back I'd make the same mistakes and end up with the same regrets, but I'd still do it.
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Jan 28, 2022 14:59
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Jaeluni Asjil posted:tax relief on £6 pweek which works out at around £1.20pw Thanks for the advice all.
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Jan 28, 2022 15:00
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Barry Foster posted:Ironically, though, my phd is, like, the last fuckin' time I'd ever wanna go back to lol Unfortunately I don't live in range of any universities and have zero transport options.
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Jan 28, 2022 15:05
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Barry Foster posted:gently caress that hits so loving close Oh for sure, I very much do not want to remember the stress of it all, but at least I had plenty of cash to enjoy the downtime. I'm working on a couple bits and pieces atm and I really should be looking into postdocs, but honestly I am completely burned out on academia and I can't think of anything worse than bouncing between 6month-2year contracts for the next 5-10 years, fighting for one of the single digit permanent faculty posts that come up, which even if you get them are often hyper-exploitative and insecure. I see so many people who are so driven and passionate hopelessly banging their heads against the wall for years on end hoping for a share of the scraps and I do not think that is for me. I'm increasingly realising that I like my very niche subject but I have pretty much zero interest in doing all the other 'academic' stuff - I couldn't give a drat about keeping up with the literature or debating the minutiae of arguments, most academic writing makes my eyes glaze over now, I don't enjoy teaching, even writing myself, which I used to love, has had all the joy taken out of it, and I associate reading with work so much now that I find it completely impossible to read for enjoyment. I think a lot of this is the inevitable problem of making something you enjoy your a job and ruining it for yourself, but the sheer precarity of it all definitely compounds things, I'd be absolutely hosed if I wasn't in a good relationship with a solid support network. I'm genuinely hoping I can transition into more stable non-academic work somewhere, but I've ended up in the classic scenario of being well-qualified in a super specialised way that means there are barely any applicable jobs and I look overqualified for other stuff. Maybe I'll look into one of the fast-track government schemes or something, idk. I dream of being able to go to work and come home leaving it all at the door, and actually enjoy reading something or even putting a few articles together as a hobby in my spare time.
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Jan 28, 2022 15:11
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I loving loved doing my BA and have often thought of doing an MA or PHD. Everyone I know who's done one has said never again, but they don't say why, and then on further pressing it turns out they also hated doing their BA and hated academic work in general. BA was fine and MA in particular was brilliant, but in both those capacities you aren't really exposed to academia as an industry or academics as people (other than as tutors) and there isn't the same weight of expectations on you. PhD is (usually) high pressure but with little to no structure. It's like being yelled at to grab as many handfuls of steam as you can and stuff them into a bag (and then someone will tell you whether the clouds of steam you managed to grab are worthwhile, but they may not tell you why they are or, more usually, aren't). You also know your entire future career - at least in academia, which, at least to start with, is what you think you want - depends on grabbing more good handfuls of steam and fewer bad handfuls of steam than your fellow PhD students, many of whom are also your friends, but also your deadly competition. Meanwhile your mental health deteriorates precipitously. It's a really, really weird situation, neither student nor employee, but with the worst of both worlds, but also quite unlike either at the same time Barry Foster fucked around with this message at 15:16 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 15:14
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Bobby Deluxe posted:I loving loved doing my BA and have often thought of doing an MA or PHD. Everyone I know who's done one has said never again, but they don't say why, and then on further pressing it turns out they also hated doing their BA and hated academic work in general. I enjoyed doing my PhD. Mostly WFH as I was a renegade, much to the disgust of everyone else, using MS Access (a relatively well-proven database system back in 1999/2001) to analyse my data - millions of rows of spacecraft data - instead of wasting 6 months having to learn C or C++ (which I had a smattering of) to create my own database analysis package which may or may not have worked properly and because I was analysing new data would have been hard to know if I was making an unholy mess of it. At least with Access I knew sqrt(col A x col B / col C )^n did what it said on the tin! I wasn't there to learn programming, I was there to do research! Friday mornings were fun: ripping other peoples' work to shreds. It started off gently with picking a paper out of a journal and pulling it to pieces. Then after we had been there a few months, it was our turn to put our stuff up and listen to everyone else tearing it apart and try to think on your feet to counterpoint or acknowledge your errors. I remember one of the postgrads who had just started saying to me after mine "I don't think I can take that much constructive criticism". Let's just say the profs etc had never learned the 'two stars and a wish' 'compliment sandwich' techniques of criticism!
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Jan 28, 2022 15:14
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ThomasPaine posted:Oh for sure, I very much do not want to remember the stress of it all, but at least I had plenty of cash to enjoy the downtime. I'm working on a couple bits and pieces atm and I really should be looking into postdocs, but honestly I am completely burned out on academia and I can't think of anything worse than bouncing between 6month-2year contracts for the next 5-10 years, fighting for one of the single digit permanent faculty posts that come up, which even if you get them are often hyper-exploitative and insecure. I see so many people who are so driven and passionate hopelessly banging their heads against the wall for years on end hoping for a share of the scraps and I do not think that is for me. I'm increasingly realising that I like my very niche subject but I have pretty much zero interest in doing all the other 'academic' stuff - I couldn't give a drat about keeping up with the literature or debating the minutiae of arguments, most academic writing makes my eyes glaze over now, I don't enjoy teaching, even writing myself, which I used to love, has had all the joy taken out of it, and I associate reading with work so much now that I find it completely impossible to read for enjoyment. I think a lot of this is the inevitable problem of making something you enjoy your a job and ruining it for yourself, but the sheer precarity of it all definitely compounds things, I'd be absolutely hosed if I wasn't in a good relationship with a solid support network. I am you and you are me
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Jan 28, 2022 15:15
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Barry Foster posted:BA was fine and MA in particular was brilliant, but in both those capacities you aren't really exposed to academia as an industry or academics as people (other than as tutors) and there isn't the same weight of expectations on you. hahaha this is too on the money e: I have my backup plan of somehow opening a (maybe crowdfunded?) co-operative pub and living the rest of my life pouring pints and doing crosswords, but I have very carefully chosen to avoid thinking too hard about how any of that would work in practice for reasons that should be quite obvious. ThomasPaine fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Jan 28, 2022 |
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Jan 28, 2022 15:23
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I mostly enjoyed my PhD, it’s certainly stressful but it’s IMO good to 1) be in an academic environment around other interesting, smart people who are generally trying to do their best at whatever it is, 2) be allowed to focus on One Big Project instead of constantly having to change your locus of attention at somebody else’s whim, 3) be able to set your own hours (usually they have to be longer than normal work hours but at least you can sleep in if you like), 4) be working on something actually interesting to you Caveat that I didn’t have to also work a job while doing my PhD, I have absolutely no idea how anybody could possibly fit those two things together
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Jan 28, 2022 15:32
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Muahaha, I went into the PhD knowing I definitely didn't want to pursue academia, so only one of my four years (write-up) was filled with mind-destroying misery and regret. There are definitely parts I miss from both the PhD and my BSc; it's very hard outside academia to feel like you properly know what you're talking about on an subject, rather than feeling like a spirited amateur. Work in industry is better defined by far but as mentioned you lose a huge amount of freedom and spare time.
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Jan 28, 2022 15:34
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Also after my PhD I got a postdoc that kind of went nowhere after a couple of years and now I’m a regular computer toucher anyway 🙃 oh well
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Jan 28, 2022 15:34
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Juche Couture posted:
Huge shoutout to propublica. Honestly, the guardian does some good poo poo some times though.
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Jan 28, 2022 15:40
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josh04 posted:There are definitely parts I miss from both the PhD and my BSc; it's very hard outside academia to feel like you properly know what you're talking about on an subject, rather than feeling like a spirited amateur. I thought realising quite how dumb you actually are was part of the universal PhD experience, honestly.
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Jan 28, 2022 15:40
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Speaking of the UK press being terrible: https://twitter.com/BootstrapCook/status/1487008027194634240
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