UKMT May 2020 - Let them eat Nando's - The Something Awful Forums

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > UKMT May 2020 - Let them eat Nando's

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

quote:

ITV has announced that studio shows like Britain's Got Talent and The Masked Singer are to return, possibly without a live audience.

All major filming ground to a halt last month in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.

But now the station's bosses have said they have "had enough" of entertainment shows broadcast via Zoom, and other video conferencing platforms.

"It looks like we will have to do some shows without audiences," they said.

https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-52492139

Return to 'normal' in 3, 2, 1...

# ¿ May 1, 2020 00:50

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 04:51

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

https://twitter.com/Urban_Pictures/status/1255956549333389313

:argh:

# ¿ May 1, 2020 01:24

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Chuka Umana posted:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/nhs-will-have-first-dibs-on-vaccine-being-tried-at-oxford-j6jjjqjm9

I don't quite understand what this article means by "first dibs?" Can't they get other companies outside the UK to produce it? Are they seriously saying that they would withhold the vaccine from the rest of the world just so the NHS can get it first? Are they really going to manufacture the vaccine in one country and then ship it back to the UK and expect that country to be fine with it? What the hell?

Why not just give it to all the pharmaceutical companies and let them use their own resources to produce it so we can maximize production?

We've got trade deals to negotiate.

# ¿ May 1, 2020 03:41

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

You know how the two metre distancing rule is more important indoors than outdoors because of relative airflow and particle dispersion? Well...

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52524344 posted:

Two metre distancing may be eased for work

Employers will not be required to maintain social distancing of two metres between workers under government proposals to reopen the UK's workplaces.

In a first draft of the government's strategy, seen by the BBC, employers are encouraged to do so where possible but where it's not, additional measures should be considered.

These should include additional hygiene procedures, physical screens and the use of protective equipment.

However, the section of the documents marked PPE is currently empty, apart from a promise that "more detail" will follow.

Union leaders have expressed concerns, saying few firms currently have this equipment and efforts to acquire it could see them competing with the NHS for scarce and essential supplies.

[Article continues]

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-52524344

Looks like I'll be working from home for a while yet.

# ¿ May 4, 2020 02:24

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

XMNN posted:

this plan bears so little relation to reality that it's not even a "perfectly spherical commuters in an evacuated train carriage" grade approximation that I'm sure they haven't even begun to consider it, but I'd like to see one of these fuckers explain what this would actually look like in practice

like you finish work at 5, can't get the 5.15 home because it's prohibitively expensive, so you get the 6.15 instead, what are you doing for that extra hour? just hanging around the station or wandering the streets? how is that helping keep people home

also, you have to pick a price that is prohibitively expensive to enough people without making a bunch of other people who could afford the higher prices decide it's worth hanging around for an hour for the cheaper train, or everyone just gets the later one anyway

also also, it's telling how, even having written off actually doing anything (e.g. making the train companies run more trains, rationing train tickets for people who absolutely have to commute to work) as being too much like communism, their instinct is to raise prices for earlier trains rather than lower them for later ones

beginning to think the IFS might be a bunch of cunts

Ironically (given just about everything about this gov's pandemic response so far) this is the type of problem that may actually be better solved by behavioural scientists than classical economists.

Eg (timestamped):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8-4JliHzoc&t=1217s

blunt fucked around with this message at 20:28 on May 4, 2020

# ¿ May 4, 2020 19:33

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Boris just said 200,000 tests per day by the end of the month.

...But why? :shrug:

# ¿ May 6, 2020 12:14

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Boris just said that some of the changes being announced on Sunday will take effect on Monday, before they've been presented to parliament.

Do we have a bingo board for his Sunday speech yet?

# ¿ May 6, 2020 12:20

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

II think it's just a badly labelled graph. Italy got its name right by its curve. Whoever made the graph could have moved the UK label down to the red line. However, that may have given a false impression that the UK is much lower than Italy. Probably would have been better to use the key for both UK and Italy and to move the key well out of the way of either of the lines, maybe over near the y-axis or bottom rh corner.

That's not the key though. That's a data point.

The footnotes kind of explain it - the metric changed before/after 5th may. The lines are using the old metric, the dot is using the new metric. That's why the axis changes colour too.

It's a loving awful graph. Whether it's intentionally misleading or "statisticians are so used to looking at statistics that they don't realise it would be confusing for other people" ... :iiam:

# ¿ May 6, 2020 13:38

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

baka kaba posted:

^^^ LED bulbs really need to decide on some standard colour temperatures though, they're all over the place

They put the colour temperature (and a lil indicator) on the box though.

It's nice having a couple of temperatures - all my main overhead lights are daylight and get used in the day, then all my side lamps etc are warm white for the evenings. That way I don't get blinded in the evening and everything looks right during the day.

I've heard fancy people have colour changing lights, but I'm not ready to put my lumens on the Internet yet.

# ¿ May 6, 2020 23:17

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

UK eyeing switch to Apple-Google API for coronavirus contacts tracing

https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/07/uk-eyeing-switch-to-apple-google-api-for-coronavirus-contacts-tracing-report

Tldr: The app doesn't work (as predicted the government's Bluetooth workaround doesn't work) and we're now paying a consultancy £3.8m just to work out how much it's gonna cost to implement the apple/Google solution after all.

# ¿ May 7, 2020 12:47

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Guavanaut posted:

What would happen if we all just started using Ireland's app instead?

It's fully decentralized, so it's not like it wouldn't work if two people with the app were near one another outside Ireland, unless they've put something in to limit installations.

I assume they're region locked in the respective app stores so you'd be looking at asking everyone to jailbreak their phones. I know Google have certainly said that they will remove any sideloaded apps that implement the API from people's phones directly (the same way they have malware in the past using Play Protect, which is in every non-rooted android phone from the last ~4 versions)

You also can't trigger an exposure without a code from the national health authority.

# ¿ May 7, 2020 13:20

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Guavanaut posted:

It seems a bit odd that in an era where masses of people cross borders every day for work that we're relying on nation-states as the natural unit of pandemic app provision.

Like if it's going to be fully decentralized and privacy focused, and just notifies people who have been near people who have been near people, and you're especially wanting to target people who travel around a lot, that sounds more like something you'd want to do at a supranational level rather than each territorial government, or at least have an agreed upon standard so that France, Germany, and Belgium aren't using completely incompatible apps.

You'd need a way of only allowing registered clinics and health authorities to flag a device as associated with a positive test, which is a pitfall, but it sounds better than having an app that stops working at the border in Ireland.

(Of course it'd be fun to see the reactions of the conspiracy lot to a WHO/EU superapp.)

I think (and I might be wrong) that once you have the app from your local app store, it works anywhere in the world (in terms of tracking exposure), it's just the exposure notification has to be triggered by your local health authority.

They're putting a lot of restrictions on distribution and implementation both because of the obvious implications of malicious third party developers gaining access to the system but also because giant tech conglomerates who don't pay taxes don't suddenly want to be seen as usurping the government (see: Facebook Libra).

This contains a pretty good overview of the restrictions Google/Apple are putting on anybody who wants to implement their system: https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/04/apple-and-google-release-sample-code-and-detailed-policies-for-covid-19-exposure-notification-apps/

# ¿ May 7, 2020 13:53

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

e: n/m, i'm an idiot. Ignore this.

# ¿ May 7, 2020 13:58

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

goddamnedtwisto posted:

BAME people more at risk *even when accounting for all other risks associated with BAME populations* and smokers being safer than ex-smokers being safer than never-smokers are probably the weirdest takeaways from this.

* Smokers being safer than never smokers being safer than ex-smokers.

Really odd/interesting. High blood pressure being safer than regular too?

# ¿ May 7, 2020 14:45

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

XMNN posted:

I mean, unless you've got some sort of ppe fetish thing going on, I think you're p likely to catch the Roni during sex regardless of whether it's in semen or not

It's concerning because with SARS it persisted for like 9months after "recovery".

# ¿ May 9, 2020 15:06

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Scotland's got a new slogan.

This is not a photoshop.

# ¿ May 11, 2020 12:33

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

That was a really interesting read. Thanks for writing + sharing!

# ¿ May 16, 2020 21:55

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Ratjaculation posted:

i like my home and i refuse to blight it with work

This is actually a significant thing - not all office workers can feasibly work from home.

I'm a furloughed office worker right now, but I live in a box room in a house with six other people where the only communal space is a kitchen and a garden - there's no room for me (or my housemates) to turn into a home office.

Without a decent raise or drop in rents moving to somewhere where working from home is more appropriate just isn't gonna happen, so I guess it's gonna be fun when we decide everyone should just work from home forever.

blunt fucked around with this message at 15:17 on May 19, 2020

# ¿ May 19, 2020 15:14

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

OwlFancier posted:

What's a WeWork?

Is it like a wew lad?

World ef Warcraft Ork?

The tldr is a rich kid (Adam Newman) mortgaged a bunch of properties and subleased them to a communal office space company he started - WeWork - who then raised billions of dollars in funding from SoftBank. Basically using venture capital to fund private ownership of commercial properties.

Eventually when they tried to file to go public everybody looked at the financials, realised it was a Ponzi scheme and now it's all crumbling.

The coffee is free tho.

E: here's a fun look at their S1 filing (to hold an IPO) https://www.profgalloway.com/wewtf

blunt fucked around with this message at 15:26 on May 19, 2020

# ¿ May 19, 2020 15:23

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Aphex- posted:

The good thing about WFH is that you don't need to live in the middle of a city and pay an extortionate amount of rent for a single bed room in a shithole building. I'm paying less money out in the sticks for a 3 bed semi detached house with my GF than I did when I lived in the middle of bristol for a tiny 1 bed place.

Not to outright disagree with you, but this presupposes that the only things someone does with their time is work and watch Netflix. If you enjoy leaving the house and doing things (especially with other people) then living in the middle of a city has a lot of upsides which for some people justifies the price (pandemic notwithstanding).

I guess what I'm saying is, not a lot of nights out in the countryside.

# ¿ May 19, 2020 15:42

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

I'd never advocate for someone to live in London and I wasn't thinking about London when I made my comment.

# ¿ May 19, 2020 15:55

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

jaete posted:

Well, in theory if this working from home thing somehow permanently becomes a common thing, all of us computer wankers (for example) can just move to rural Horsefirshire, where one can rent a seven-bedroom mansion for the cost of a standard windowless one-room box in London zone 4.

No idea if this whole thing will make remote working more common though, I mean I would think it certainly must, but on the other hand, this /is/ hellworld we are in &c

blunt posted:

Not to outright disagree with you, but this presupposes that the only things someone does with their time is work and watch Netflix. If you enjoy leaving the house and doing things (especially with other people) then living in the middle of a city has a lot of upsides which for some people justifies the price (pandemic notwithstanding).

I guess what I'm saying is, not a lot of nights out in the countryside.

(See the last 50 posts of discussion 😅)

I guess my point is just because someone could move to a more rural place doesn't mean that they want to. I'm perfectly happy paying to live in a shared house in a city centre despite more room being available cheaper further out because (in normal times) living 2 minutes away from my friends, the gym, restaurants, bars, museums etc is worth it to me. If work from home became permanent I'd resent having to give that up for my job much in the same way that I assume there are people that very much resent having to live in a city centre for their work. It comes down to choice, or the absence of it.

If (as the post that started this whole discussion suggested) every office decides not to renew their leases and go fully WFH forever there's going to be literally millions of people that are suddenly going to have to reassess their living situations.

blunt fucked around with this message at 21:39 on May 19, 2020

# ¿ May 19, 2020 21:22

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Hypothetically if you were doing WFH for a British company and you decided you'd rather live in [non-eu country, lets say Canada for example] while you performed this work, would you require a work visa or could you move from place to place on tourism visas? Is it country dependent? I suppose income taxes might also be a consideration?

I guess this isn't a new question if 'digital nomads' already do it?

Working from 'home' forever certainly raises a lot of possibilities.

# ¿ May 20, 2020 02:38

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

To paraphase Bojo in PMQ's right now (on the subject of NHS surcharges for international NHS staff): "Foreign carers saved my life. On the other hand, it's a national health service."

Soulless.

# ¿ May 20, 2020 12:16

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

crispix posted:

How forensic was Keir today using a scale of 0 (Witchfinder General) to 10 (Kojack)

He made the prime minister say 'forensic'.

# ¿ May 20, 2020 12:37

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Sad Panda posted:

I love how Independent Sage put out a report about why schools shouldn't open on June 1st and not a peep on the BBC News website.
http://www.independentsage.org/

Looks like they forgot to add a communications expert because their website is baaaaaad.

(This isn't supposed to be a glib comment. You're not gonna convince the people you're trying to convince by putting out badly formatted walls of text on a monotone website).

# ¿ May 22, 2020 12:04

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

OwlFancier posted:

Beds and benches, things which are a fixed distance in all possible orientations. A helpful unit of measurement.

"The left will complain about anything"

# ¿ May 22, 2020 12:30

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

OwlFancier posted:

I am genuinely confused at how 1 bed can equal 2 benches with any combination of sizes and orientations of the two, especially if the sum is supposed to be 2 meters.

Like maybe a single bed is two bench-depths wide?? Are london benches particularly short?

Also while I'm complaining about things I like that my compulsive editing appears to have broken the forums such that if you quote my previous post it does not give you what is visible on the page.

42 inches being 106cm.

2 meters isn't a magic number, it's a convenient one that people can roughly approximate to help people understand how far they should stay away from each other - the same reason the US is telling people to stay 6 feet apart as opposed to 2 meters. You already know this, because you're a rational and literate adult.

Complaining about trivia only undercuts our complaints about substantive issues.

We (the left) all complain about trivia too much.

blunt fucked around with this message at 12:52 on May 22, 2020

# ¿ May 22, 2020 12:50

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

bornbytheriver posted:

You what?

Pick below minimum wage.

# ¿ May 22, 2020 15:51

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Ya'll just posting a bunch of deleted tweets. Gotta do the screengrabs yourself instead of relying on other tweets

# ¿ May 24, 2020 18:09

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Cummings is holding a press conference this afternoon.

Yiiikes

# ¿ May 25, 2020 12:46

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

OwlFancier posted:

Him personally or as part of the government?

Not sure. Sky News just said that he was giving a statement and taking questions this afternoon.

# ¿ May 25, 2020 12:48

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

Jaeluni Asjil posted:

Friends were astonished because mostly they live in cities and they can register it the same or next day as the death. City dwellers have no idea how difficult things can be for rural dwellers.

We know, that's why we live in cities :colbert:

Of course it's 2020 so you'd imagine in that a sufficiently prosperous first world country a lot of this sort of bureaucracy should be able to be handled electronically, alas... :britain:

# ¿ May 26, 2020 22:08

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# ¿ May 10, 2024 04:51

blunt: Jul 7, 2005

goddamnedtwisto posted:

I was accused of being Welsh in Las Vegas.

When I was in Vegas i was asked where in both Canada and Australia I was from..

blunt fucked around with this message at 23:01 on May 30, 2020

# ¿ May 30, 2020 22:30

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