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Comment Re:Is a dickhead worse than a cunt? (Score 5, Insightful) 105

The ironic thing is that the phrase "it is only because of you two dickheads that I stayed" is actually a term of endearment. Most British people (likelihood increasing with latitude) would interpret that as "You can both be irritating idiots at times, but despite that I still like you both and that is why I stayed"

Comment Re:Unintended consequences (Score 2) 105

Plenty of freedom of expression here and nobody goes to prison for factually correct statements unless they have breached a court order not to reveal protected information.

However, lying about the above is a great way to make people scared, and scared people are more easy to manipulate. It's a great way to build a power base and get donations. Sorry that someone you trusted for factual information did that to you.

Comment Re:Stand by my previous post on this. (Score 1) 49

I posted this below, and promptly had it downrated and graded as troll. I think this is completely irrational. What I said is correct, it really has been just a nice UK summer. I spent the warmest part of it in the UK and can tell you that is all there has been. Quite unlike the summer of a couple of years ago, when I was also in the UK, and that was genuinely very hot. This summer I have not felt any need to restrict outdoor activity at any time of day, and haven't heard of anyone who did. Unlike a couple of years ago. Nights warm enough to be uncomfortable are a usual feature of very warm UK summers - I have not heard anyone mentioning that. Though they have in the past about other summers.

Explaining why you think it is impossible for the mean temperature to be higher WITHOUT it causing those effects might help. At the moment it just looks like you don't understand enough maths to see how a long period of slightly warmer weather than usual can produce a mean that is higher that that caused by a very short period of exceptionally hot weather and humid nights.

For the rest, just because a lot of people have been copy-pasting the same opinion on social media, doesn't give it any more factual weight. Remember, they are monetising traffic so they have a financial reason to be dramatic to attract traffic. The methods that the Met Office used for gridding data and sampling values at specific locations are all published and reviewed.

https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wi...

Comment Re:Privatisation (Score 1) 169

The birth rate has plummeted according to another front-page story. If it hadn't, and we'd had zero immigration since the war, we'd have even more people here now. What would you be blaming the problem on in that situation - too many Brits having babies? Or would the problem suddenly cease to be the number of people?

Comment Re:I'm conflicted (Score 1) 159

Temperatures I used to think were green they make yellow and what used to be yellow often is red.

Yes, they have changed the colour scheme used because the previous one was hard for people with red-green colourblindness to interpret. Certain groups who are always eager to paint something as a threat or manipulation so that they can say they will champion protecting you from it have of course jumped on this.

Comment Re:What problem does transparency solve? (Score 1) 29

You've never forgotten a name? You've never forgotten to pick something up at the store? Never cared for a sick child?

Augmented reality done well, together with a little imagination, solves a lot of real-world problems. We're nowhere near doing augmented reality well though.

Comment Re:Whut? (Score 1) 125

Be interesting to know where you've picked the 'tatters' tripe up from - you might be sucking down too much algorithmically driven manipulation from the internet in place of actual information. Doing OK and looking good into the near future isn't so bad. https://commonslibrary.parliam...

I see the expected downturn is hitting the US.

Comment Re:No real surprises. (Score 1) 112

The only note I'd add is that "selection was entirely on how academically competent you were" should be replaced with "selection was entirely on how well coached you'd been to pass exams". There were certainly people there based just on how academically gifted they were. There was also a large cohort there based on how much money had been thrown at tutors and private schools, or who had happened to live near a sixth-form college skilled at getting people into university.

It's not a trivial exercise to design an education system that gets the actual best candidates into university.

Comment Re:Ontario, Canada, has the same issue (Score 1) 112

I mostly agree, but I have to press the point that I mention to all kids wary about the cost of university in the UK - you don't come out of university with a debt, the government does. What you've agreed to is paying a higher effective rate of tax when you earn above a threshold. The loan doesn't impact your eligibility for other loans, and it gets written off after time. So don't worry about the size of the loan, think about whether you think that paying that higher rate of tax is a fair exchange for going to university.

Comment Re: Economist's analysis is a bit trite (Score 1) 112

Brexit didn't just make the UK hostile to EU students, the impact followed through to a drop in all international registrations, not just those from the EU. We also lost quite a lot of good staff who didn't want to live outside the EU (there were pension and professional registration impacts).

Comment Re:Economist's analysis is a bit trite (Score 2) 112

Going to university somewhere in Europe was a great option for British kids that would have trouble affording university in the UK. Pick the right university and the tuition was free, the teaching was in English, and there was help with living costs. Brexit put a stop to that though.

Comment Re:Models Wrong but Actually Right (Score 1) 215

You're making the mistake of thinking of it as one model. There are multiple different models involved in a climate simulation. Here we have the situation that when a bunch of mostly correct models run end-to-end, the final radiated heat is less than expected due to a cloud component of the simulation not working correctly - doesn't mean the whole set of models is wrong.

The ocean models that you then comment about seem to be accurate and we do have some evidence that the circulation in the Atlantic is weakening.

+4 in Britain would not be nice - large parts of the country would struggle. It would mean a significant increase in CO2 output as the amount of installed AC rapidly increased - typically we don't need it.

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