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Comment Re:UK arrests 30 people a day for speech (Score 1) 48

I haven't been able to find a source for this 12,000 claim, but it seems likely that it's untrue.

My guess would be that they simply looked at every arrest where evidence included social media posts, e.g. if someone was assaulted and the attacker happened to have posted on social media about it, that counted.

I am no fan of the UK or the way it is going, but there were clear directions from the government a few years ago that social media posts should only be the basis of arrests in very specific and fairly extreme circumstances, e.g. where it is reasonably believed that there is an imminent threat of violence.

Comment Re:So I looked into it (Score 1) 48

That was not a joke, that was part of a very long running campaign to incite violence against trans people.

Graham Linehan has just been convicted of smashing a child's phone when she confronted him about the months long harassment campaign he waged against her on social media, which included attempts to dox her.

He got off extremely lightly, all things considered. The only reason he beat the harassment charge was because the judge didn't think that the victim was sufficiently harassed, and the prosecution didn't prep her very well.

He's a bigot and a convicted violent criminal, and has gone straight back to harassing people.

Comment Re:according to google.... (Score 1) 158

The biggest problem for the government is that the welfare bill is expected to rise by around £90 billion/year by 2030 (OBR forecast), and half of that is pensions alone. The population is ageing and also turning against immigration of the young and healthy workers we need.

Mistakes were made going back to the 1960s and no government has the will to address them, only to kick the can further down the road.

Comment Re:Hmmm... (Score 1) 158

The more expensive public charging is about on a par with a decently efficient fossil car. When it can get expensive (aside from rip-offs) is when you also have to pay for parking, which is common in London.

If you can charge at home then it is much cheaper, around 2p/mile, or free if you have solar.

Comment Re:Annoying but actually reasonable (Score 1) 158

In the UK we have an annual inspection, but not until the car is 3 years old (from the point of first sale). They have said they will have a free odometer reading at the same place that does the annual check for the first two times.

The more annoying part is that you have to pay up front, i.e. estimate your annual mileage and then at the next odometer check you get a refund or pay more depending on if you are under or over. I can see why they did it, car tax is paid up front for the year too, and it allows people to spread it over monthly payments.

Comment Re:Unthinkable (Score 1) 16

The people who get them have usually suffered some kind of extremely traumatic injury. IIRC the first woman to have one was mauled by a dog, which literally ate her face.

Before face transplants, the only option was to take skin from elsewhere and use it to repair the face as best as possible, to he point where it looked awful but at better than having no skin. The upside was that because the skin came from their own body, rejection wasn't a big problem.

Face transplants were supposed to offer better functionality (ability to talk, eat and breathe more normally, as well as facial expressions) and look cosmetically a bit nicer.

There does seem to be some kind of issue with "external" transplants like this. I recall someone who had a whole hand transplanted, but wanted it removed. Even aside from issues like parts of the transplant not getting enough blood flow and dying, it seems that having part of someone else's body visibly grafted onto you (not an internal organ) comes with psychological challenges.

Comment I hate this cliche. (Score 1, Offtopic) 16

I suspect that it's more symptom than cause, and probably not at the top of the list of causes; but I cannot overstate how much I loathe the hyperbolic use of the term 'unthinkable' in these sorts of situations. Both because it's false; and because it often acquires a sort of implicitly exculpatory implication that is entirely undeserved.

Not only is it 'thinkable'; having something awful happen when you perform a procedure that requires longterm hardcore immunosuppression and then let them follow through the cracks is trivially predictable. It's the expected behavior. Successfully reconnecting a whole ton of little blood vessels and nerves is fairly exotic medicine; predicting that thing will go poorly without substantial follow-up is trivial even by washout premed standards.

This isn't to say that it isn't ghastly, or that I could imagine being in that position; but 'unthinkable' is closer to being a claim of unpredictability or unknowability; which is wholly unwarranted. None of this was unthinkable; but nobody really cared to check or wanted to know all that much.

Submission + - Australia spent $62 million to update their weather web site and made it worse (bbc.com)

quonset writes: Australia last updated their weather site a decade ago. In October, during one of the hottest days of the year, the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) revealed its new web site and was immediately castigated for doing so. Complaints ranged from a confusing layout to not being able to find information. Farmers were particularly incensed when they found out they could no longer input GPS coordinates to find forecasts for a specific location. When it was revealed the cost of this update was A$96.5 million ($62.3 million), 20 times the original cost estimate, the temperature got even hotter.

With more than 2.6 billion views a year, Bom tried to explain that the site's refresh — prompted by a major cybersecurity breach in 2015 — was aimed at improving stability, security and accessibility. It did little to satisfy the public.

Some frustrated users turned to humour: "As much as I love a good game of hide and seek, can you tell us where you're hiding synoptic charts or drop some clues?"

Malcolm Taylor, an agronomist in Victoria, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) that the redesign was a complete disaster.

"I'm the person who needs it and it's not giving me the information I need," the plant and soil scientist said.

As psychologist and neuroscientist Joel Pearson put it, "First you violate expectations by making something worse, then you compound the injury by revealing the violation was both expensive and avoidable. It's the government IT project equivalent of ordering a renovation, discovering the contractor has made your house less functional, and then learning they charged you for a mansion."

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