That’s it. We should hand back our “developed country” card.

People will rip off the headsets if the ads are too intrusive and annoying. Which is why they’ll either be dead subtle, or they’ll offer you paid ways to avoid them.

I don’t think there’ll be mass adoption of this either way, mainly because it’s an expensive gadget coming at a time when folks on median incomes are feeling the pinch.

What’s his negotiating stance with doctors again?

What’s funny about all of this is everyone is obsessed with the funding model instead of the delivery model.

If you choose to fund it privately, please keep in mind that they need to make a profit - which means that if a publicly funded service could do things within the same cost envelope they would be cheaper as they wouldn’t need to add the profit margin on top. There is no more cost effective solution than single payer, public sector service.

So. Why does no one talk about how healthcare is actually delivered?

In Liz we Truss. Amen.

That’s right. Let’s totally fail to consider arguments on their merits, one way or the other (and recognise that his party has been holding down doctors pay for over a decade while demanding more of them, not to mention the whole pandemic thing), and instead worry about “sending a message”.

I wonder if he has a bet riding on the outcome of this?

“Government does not understand” - standard current-era (c.2010 onwards) Tory.

Cancelling a chunk of HS2 in a way that at the time and increasingly since comes across as “on a whim” suggests a total lack of understanding not just of rail but of national infrastructure, our economy and our people.

HS2 never had to be some kind of souped up bullet train service. All HS2 had to be was an increase in capacity, with any added speed as a bonus. Four track instead of two track - so that fast trains didn’t get stuck behind stopping services. That’s all that was needed.

This country is ridiculous. We are a tiny island. How hard is it to connect up all the bits with road and rail? The roads are falling apart and our once world-leading and world-beating railways are outdated, poorly routed/connected and economically constrictive.

It’s incredible. I went to a consultation forum regarding intruding 20mph speed limits and all these conspiracy nuts just came out of the crowd like some zombie apocalypse.

It’s conspiracies all the way down.

The pure ChatGPT output would probably be garbage. The dataset will be full of all manner of sources (together with their inherent biases) together with spin, untruths and outright parody and it’s not apparent that there is any kind of curation or quality assurance on the dataset (please correct me if I’m wrong).

I don’t think it’s a good tool for extracting factual information from. It does seem to be good at synthesising prose and helping with writing ideas.

I am quite interested in things like this where the output from a “knowledge engine” is paired with something like ChatGPT - but it would be for eg writing a science paper rather than news.

ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS, EXCEPT EUROPA.

ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE.

USE THEM TOGETHER.

USE THEM IN PEACE.

Exactly. The data harvest has had years in the making.

“This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.” - Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Yes. Seriously.

“Doctor, there’s nothin’ wrong with me Doctor, doctor, can’t you see? Doctor, I ain’t gonna die Just write me an alibi” - Lemmy

Yes; my advice was going to be to get hold of one decent cooking pot and one decent chef’s knife and learn to cook.

Prepping my own food and being able to bulk cook meals for a few days to a few weeks ahead was a big advantage. Also helped me to get to know people and make friends.

You need a decent pot. And a knife you can maintain and sharpen. And to learn to cook.

I last looked at this graph a few months ago. New data has been added. It just gets worse each time…

“And he brought me into a vast farmland of our own Midwest And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil One thousand, nay, a million voices full of fear And terror possessed me then And I begged, “Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?” And the angel said unto me “These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard Tomorrow is harvest day and to them, it is the Holocaust” And I sprang from my slumber, drenched in sweat Like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared “Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!””

Disgustipated - Tool

I thought Domino as depicted in Deadpool 2 was pretty cool. Just lucky enough.

Will you be able to get a seat at Dorsia’s?

I mean that sounds like a curse. Endless screaming. Where others may see a cute bunny munching on some grass, or a bee buzzing around a flower, all you will hear are shrieks of pain and abject terror.