big scary monsters posted:

. Is 4G reasonably widespread and dependable in the UK now? When I last lived there it was often pretty spotty outside of cities (and sometimes even inside them).

ThomasPaine posted:

.

Why can't we just have BT running the whole thing with all the masts and near 100% coverage? gently caress you, that's why.

big scary monsters posted:

ThomasPaine posted:

I've been using my phone as a 4G hotspot as my only internet for years.

Failed Imagineer posted:

Just had to check the difference for myself and my home wifi is 50x faster than my LTE sim connection in an area with good reception.

Agreed that a hotspot is pretty decent in a pinch if you have reasonable expectations about what kind of speeds you're gonna get

OwlFancier posted:

I really do enjoy the trend of unbelievably yoked wizards.

Bring your spell book to leg day energy.

Failed Imagineer posted:

Just had to check the difference for myself and my home wifi is 50x faster than my LTE sim connection in an area with good reception.

Agreed that a hotspot is pretty decent in a pinch if you have reasonable expectations about what kind of speeds you're gonna get

Bobby Deluxe posted:

Did someone say MUSCLE WIZARD

smellmycheese posted:

https://twitter.com/sunderland_gm/status/1664199651149615104?s=46&t=m_nNbkNoHG4lLitcpyHReg

big scary monsters posted:

Anyone have experience with dongles or mobile routers for internet when travelling? We're driving to the UK in the summer and travelling around a bit while there, and my partner needs to be able to do video meetings. I know that nothing short of satellite internet is going to reliably get her online if we're out in the Highlands, but any idea what's good for areas with 4G/5G connectivity? When I search half of them are devices you rent and pay some ridiculously high daily rate for access, but I'm after something we can buy and put in our own SIM card with more reasonable data rates. I did find an £800 Netgear 5G device that fits the bill but that seems a bit steep.

Guavanaut posted:

Does Shrek cock fall under prohibited images?

sinky posted:

The Grauniad posted:

Two-child limit on UK welfare benefits ‘has failed to push parents into jobs’
Exclusive: Policy misunderstands realities of caring roles and has left hundreds of thousands of families in poverty, study finds

The UK’s controversial two-child benefit limit, which restricts welfare payments to larger families in an attempt to force parents to find work, has failed to increase employment levels – but it has left hundreds of thousands of households in poverty, according to the first study of its kind.

However, the study says the policy’s impoverishment of larger low-income households has helped few parents get a job – instead, its “main function” has been to push families further into poverty and damage their mental health.

“We found that, rather than increasing employment, the two-child limit increases poverty and hardship – and that this can actually make it harder for parents to take up work,” said Kitty Stewart, a co-author of the study and an associate professor of social policy at the London School of Economics.

The policy – called the “worst social security policy ever” by one academic expert shortly after its introduction – is now estimated to affect about 1.5 million children, with more than a million of them growing up in poverty. More than half the households affected are working families.

fuctifino posted:

https://twitter.com/AdamBienkov/status/1664305825920303119

Ms Adequate posted:

lmao guess they've stopped bothering with pretending they're only upset about ~chancers~ and are coming for us all now.

Cool.

quote:

This paper documents several interesting and novel findings. First, areas which experienced a greater relative population decline due to the spread of influenza spend less, per-capita, on their inhabitants in the following decade. This holds especially for spending on amenities more likely to be consumed by the young, for example school funding.

Second, influenza deaths of 1918 are correlated with an increase in the share of votes won by right-wing extremists, such as the National Socialist Workers Party (the Nazi Party), in the crucial elections of 1932 and 1933. This correlation holds even when controlling for a city’s religious makeup, city wages, regional unemployment, city-level exposure to the "hyperinflation" of 1923, the share of right-wing votes before the first world war, and other local characteristics associated with extremist vote share. A one std. deviation increase in the proportion of the population killed by influenza was associated with an around 0.8%-pt higher share of votes won by the national socialist party.

The correlation between influenza mortality and vote share was negative for left-leaning parties also considered "extremist", such as the communists.

quote:

“Voters care more about jobs than green stuff, it was always a mistake to call it the green prosperity plan,” they said, adding that other infrastructure projects could be included in the scheme, such as rail or housing. “A bunch of us are now saying... it should be used for capital spending even if not explicitly ‘green’.”

quote:

“There’s certainly a growing tension among frontbenchers over the fact that there will be all this borrowing for green schemes and not for things like hospitals and schools.”

fuctifino posted:

https://twitter.com/DrFrancesRyan/status/1664307535510216704

fuctifino posted:

https://twitter.com/DrFrancesRyan/status/1664307535510216704

domhal posted:

Good news! Labour has a Green Prosperity Plan. They are going to spend 0.87 Hinkley C/1.5 CrossRails per year on saving the UK from the climate crisis. (Its a plan from two years ago nobody remembers or cares about.)

https://www.ft.com/content/f93fb6f1-3c96-4fd9-a8f3-a457f2612a1a

jaete posted:

Hey friends, asking for advice again. A friend of mine has been living in London for many years. Some five years ago he didn't have much money, so he asked the council for some mercy on the council tax. As I understand it the council reduced his council tax to zero temporarily (I think?) and also even paid him some living support or whatever it was, a bit of money each month straight to his bank account, for a couple years.

Of course now they are saying he has to pay back every penny, because gently caress you. The bill is around five grand. He can pay in installments and whatnot but still... I'm not sure on what grounds they're asking for the money back, there was no fraud he was really penniless, and it was several years ago.

Friend called the council and they said that, apparently, HMRC had sent them a letter saying this guy is some kinda moocher or whatever, and that's the basis for the council demanding the money back.

I don't know anything at all about this stuff, as usual, but the whole thing just seems like bullshit to me. So my question is: is there some kind of charity advice thing that could help my friend here? At the very least he should try to file some kind of complaint or something against the council, rather than just succumb and pay them. Like, at least find out the real reason and real details about why he's being asked to pay this back, based on what kind of calculation.

Super glad I am myself a rich wanker who has never needed to ask any public body here for anything, loving hell.

jaete posted:

Hey friends, asking for advice again. A friend of mine has been living in London for many years. Some five years ago he didn't have much money, so he asked the council for some mercy on the council tax. As I understand it the council reduced his council tax to zero temporarily (I think?) and also even paid him some living support or whatever it was, a bit of money each month straight to his bank account, for a couple years.

Of course now they are saying he has to pay back every penny, because gently caress you. The bill is around five grand. He can pay in installments and whatnot but still... I'm not sure on what grounds they're asking for the money back, there was no fraud he was really penniless, and it was several years ago.

sebzilla posted:

Definitely try to not pay it if it's bullshit, but worst case I think HMRC debts can be paid interest-free over 10 years of not more (I've been paying £20.83 per month for overpaid benefits for about five years now and probably ought to check when I can expect to stop)