Posts by codejunky

Re: economics?

@mevets

"Can they partition again, into "Left True; Left False; Right True; Right False" to see whether the amplification follows not just the bias, but also the fantasy aspect."

That would come with a problem. There is a fundamental disagreement of what is truth, what is opinion and what is down right insanity. As FB claiming covid lab leaks as lies before having to step back once reality emerged. Where do they stand on what is a man and what is a woman? The effectiveness of different kinds of drugs? Climate change and effects?

I expect an amount of difficulty with that would be initial definitions which of course would never be agreed on as to what is and isnt truth.

Re: That's easy

@AC

"Everyone knows that the right makes better memes"

You could be onto something with that. The right/libertarian has joy, humour, range of opinion and a sarcastic streak a mile long. I dont use twitter but from other platforms and discussion boards this seems to be fairly consistent.

I was interested to see the humorous output of the left consisted of 'orange man bad' before hitting the floor once Trump left office. Its almost as though left humour is majority politics and stops there.

Of course it helps that comedians with a history of making people laugh are against the censoring which blocks humour.

Re: @Potemkine!

@jake

"Do you really have to wonder?"

Yes. In both cases someone else believes they have the right to inject something into your body regardless of your rights, freedoms and consent. Both doing it for their own good not the one being injected. Its for the good of everyone else around them who perceive some great risk even though they are vaccinated.

Put this against the backdrop of some countries not accepting immunity as good enough but requiring the vaccine to be considered safe. Against the stupidity of people arguing against herd immunity as real (which was the goal ffs and why the vaccines were being developed) only to have them pushing for mass vaccination. A disturbing implicit trust in governments which is not only unusual but these are the same governments constantly criticized as incompetent and dangerous to the population.

*I will mention that I am double jabbed after taking some time to think about it. That does not mean I believe in forcing people against their will from not taking it.

Re: @Howard Sway

@mevets

"Urine tests for drug screening."

I am not aware of them putting anything into your body for that

Re: @Potemkine!

I see 12 downvotes at the idea that stabbing someone with a needle and injecting something they do not consent to is wrong. Watching the news there are girls being 'spiked' by needle because someone else feels they have the right to that girls body and to inject a substance they dont want.

I wonder how far removed those opinions are.

Re: @Potemkine!

@jake

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one."

Wasnt that the justification for the USSR, Nazi Germany and countless atrocities around the world?

Re: @Howard Sway

@AC

"Well they will tell you what you can't eat or drink"

That would be the opposite of what I said. They can refuse you if you are impaired from your duties but they cannot dictate what you must put in your body.

@jmch

"I agree, which is why, hats off to Apple for a policy that reasonably balances health concerns with respect for their employees' privacy and freedom of choice."

I find it more concerning how the others have acted in response to the virus. Well done Apple but hopefully all will continue to allow working from home for those who wish to.

@Potemkine!

"Freedom is doing everything which injures no one else. Refusing to get vaccinated is taking the risk to injure or kill somebody else."

Stabbing someone with a needle to inject a substance the person does not consent to (even coercion) is taking away freedom.

@Howard Sway

"I presume your employer insists on you wearing clothes at work."

The employer does not get to dictate what I must eat or drink (put in my body).

Re: "GM is projecting an all-electric future..."

@John Robson

"30% of what compared with what? Typical efficiency is still in the 35% range"

The point was that engine efficiency is obviously not at its peak. As fuel is cheap the research hasnt really been worth it.

"A number of cars already have this capability"

Sorry I assume technically it can be done, I was asking more from the usability of the vehicle. If you had an emergency it would suck to find your car doesnt have enough charge even though its plugged in the wall (because it was powering the grid). Not insurmountable and MachDiamond did a pretty good reply on possible solutions.

"since that was your baseline."

Ah cool. Sorry I didnt know if it was range of transmission lines or driving etc (as I said sorry for being dim I just didnt know which). Not sure I mentioned normal daily driving but it is obviously what we compare against.

While not personally convinced by EV's I am more irritated by our reliance on crap energy generation. People can choose to buy an EV or not but we all suffer directly and indirectly by our energy generation being wildly unreliable. EV's are a problem solution if they suck a lot of energy but we dont generate much because of wind/solar.

Re: "GM is projecting an all-electric future..."

@MachDiamond

"An ICE is a very inefficient way to utilize that latent energy."

I was only talking about as a store of energy. I am vastly more likely to find the battery in my car is dead than my fuel evaporated from the tank.

Re: "GM is projecting an all-electric future..."

@John Robson

"Petrol is a great energy store, but a small engine is always going to be less efficient than a large one - that's just simple physics and engineering"

True, the value is in its ability to store energy effectively. Also with the cheap price of petrol the ICE doesnt seem to have hit peak efficiency either. In 2019 Mazda had improved the engine by 30%.

"The concept of V2G storage is well established, and it is commercialised in part already"..."Extending that to vehicles isn't too hard."

When I said I dont know how that would work I ment draining the fuel of some ones vehicle. Not an impossible situation to solve I would hope but something that would need addressing to work.

"Given that we just added an extra 200 miles of range over what you expected"

Sorry to be dim but added 200miles to what?

"The cost is artificially low because the cost of using the energy is not just the cost of production, but of cleaning up as well. Ignoring that externalised cost is not unique to the energy sector either."

Assuming we are to believe in MMCC co2 theory (as an example of an externalised cost) the economic solution sounds to be a carbon tax and let the market deal with the improvements/costs. Which would still make fossil fuel power generation the cheaper option followed by nuclear. Increased reliance on windfarms/solar just increases our reliance on gas and massively overcharges us all for energy.

Re: "GM is projecting an all-electric future..."

@John Robson

"Even if we burnt the petrol in a power plant we'd still reduce emissions, because we'd need less of it to power the vehicles on the road."

That doesnt seem to work. Petrol is a fantastic store of energy which we have in the tank and use only at the point where it is needed. Petrol in a power plant to power cars would have transmission losses before reaching the battery which would lose charge (a huge problem with the green revolution is no effective means to store electricity). Thats without considering that the generation of electricity must be available on demand and not at a preset time.

"And we could use relatively heavy/bulky equipment to capture the nastiest emissions and reduce the damage further. Additionally those emissions would be made somewhere that wasn't densely populated by people breathing it all in."

That is probably true.

"If we had an additional 40kWh storage available, maybe across half of the vehicle fleet, that would be a rather substantial battery to cope with the variation in generation from other sources as well."

I am not sure how effective that would be but the electricity losses going back and forth while draining someones personal transport of fuel because the grid needs energy would need serious working out. I dont know how that would work (do tell if you have information on this, I just dont know of working solutions).

"Our energy prices have been artificially far too low for far too long"

How is it artificial? We have and still do generate energy from fuels that we know work and we know how to harness and extract in useful ways. The price has been low due to the cost being low. One lie used to sell monuments to a sky god was how cheap it was and would be, which has failed miserably. But more concerning is we are still building such monuments which then increases our reliance on fossil fuels (to make the stuff) and then we still need fossil fuel generators because the monuments deliver so little.

I must admit I really hope some green champion MP states that the winter fuel allowance should be scrapped as an idea because energy prices have been artificially low for too long.

Re: "GM is projecting an all-electric future..."

@John Robson

"And every time we add more clean energy generation to the grid everybodies emissions go down."

Our energy prices go up, our reliance on gas goes up (because something has to produce the energy the unreliable's dont), our reliance on nuclear (French) energy increases and our spare capacity goes down.

Re: Hmm

@James Hughes 1

"The long term problems caused by continued fossil fuel burning"

Like what? Electricity supply?

"will greatly outweigh any EV problems."

Such as no energy to charge them

Re: @Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

@Yet Another Anonymous coward

"Not experts that have been put on the committee because they agree with the government plan"

Yet those were the 'experts' Gove railed against hence the quote.

Re: Here is an idea.

@myithingwontcharge

"It's not panic buying if there's a real shortage"

Panic buying causes a real shortage. Thats why people were acting stupid and dangerous (and illegally) as they put petrol into water containers and bin bags. There was no fuel shortage until demand jumped 500%. At the best of times that cannot be handled. Same when toilet roll ran out after brexit, there was plenty of it but it was in the warehouse because such excessive demand could not be known in advance.

Re: What a surprise

@John Robson

"You were always welcome to leave...

No need to stay in the UK if you don't like it."

Oddly that doesnt work. Because if you are happy to be of your country but not of the supranational political grouping imposed upon it then you cant leave to the UK. Amusingly to suggest the UK leaves the EU but people wanting to remain can still go to the EU doesnt get a positive reaction. Probably because they want to remain in the UK More.

"The biggest problem was there was never a clear idea of what leaving was"

Nor for remain. A scary but repeated claim being for the 'status quo'. Something absolutely against what the EU has in mind.

"There was a general disgruntlement, and now we've left... everything is apparently still the fault of the EU."

I am not seeing that everything is the fault of the EU. A few things EU caused are but thats about it. But brexit is blamed for anything bad or perceived as bad. When we left anything good was 'despite brexit' and bad 'due to brexit' even when often the good was due to brexit and the bad nothing to do with.

"That's why a second referendum was important:"

At no point had the remain group been trust worthy enough with the result never mind additional questions. That is a situation going back to the labour government so for some time.

Re: What a surprise

@John Robson

"It matters - because there was never a requirement to do anything"

But as you say it was an opinion poll and the gov decided to do what people had a strong opinion of. And that opinion seems to have stayed from the referendum through MEP and general elections. Pro remain parties being all but wiped out and pro leave having the support throughout.

"unbelievably stupid as to leave both the EU (which we could have done, it would have been damaging but survivable) *AND* the customs union/single market..."

But to leave the EU and have the EU dictating our trade and trade rules would be unacceptable. Part of the problem was the protectionist single market.

"If you remember leaving the latter was always ruled out by those pushing the idea of leaving the EU."

Not as far as I was aware. Some wanted to stay in the SM others out. There was a wide range of opinions for leave as there was for remain.

"Suddenly it became something that had been decided by a referendum, and therefore something that we had to do, ignoring the fact that we hadn't actually prepared for it at all."

The lack of preparation irritated me too. As did dragging out the leave process. Had people willing to leave been allowed to get on with it we would have been fine, unfortunately it was a drawn out process of desperate attempts to remain.

Re: What a surprise

@John Robson

"Ours was expressly coded in law as an opinion poll."

Good so it doesnt matter the result we finally got a government to implement leave which meets the desires of the opinion poll that Cameron agreed to implement after setting the rules.

Re: Excellent

@Loyal Commenter

"In your mind, you just keep on winning, and you have the evidence to prove it..."

Winning what? You guys still post the same bull, I just keep shooting it down. Almost as funny as your posts with really dumb assumptions of who I am and often getting what I write wrong.

"...in the form of a blog post from a right-wing climate change denier. Rock solid that."

I can only assume you mean Tim Worstal who doesnt seem to deny climate change only the way to deal with Co2 (he gets some stick for this on his blog).

Not that you would be wrong again...

Re: @Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

@Terry Barnes

"…and you think people building canals with spoons is equivalent to high-paying value-adding work like semiconductor fab how?"

If you read the article you will find the answer. You say high paying value adding work like semiconductor fabrication, Intel says differently. Its cheaper to do in Asia and the only reason they are looking at US and EU is the taxpayers money being given to subsidise the difference. Because the value of the work is less than the cost of doing it in the west.

"You’ve made yourself look more, not less, stupid."

Now you have been shown wrong will you retract that? Or try to justify how I somehow look stupid?

Re: Excellent

@werdsmith

"@codejunky has been having his pro-brexit arguments on here destroyed for years. He must enjoy the humiliation."

Damn your recollection of our conversations seem to be very different to mine. Guess thats what keeps you coming back

Re: @Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

@Mooseman

"because the eu pays its workers sensibly? Yes, we lost out."

That doesnt make much sense. Can you explain that one

Re: @Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

@Mooseman

"Ah there it is, the usual quitling get out of jail free card - oooh vaccinations!"

You mean a very valid, if inconvenient for you, fact?

"And yet we have been overtaken on that too."

If you mean by the EU then no. If you mean some countries in Europe then yes, its amazing how quickly they turned the situation around when the member countries abandoned the EU procurement and got it themselves.

"Your constant unwavering support for brexit"

Which still seems to be going very well to the seeming frustration of those who wish it didnt.

Re: @Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

@Dinanziame

"...Wow. I guess it's really useless to continue this discussion..."

If you dont understand that jobs are a cost not a benefit then yes you wont be much use to the discussion. One of my favourite stories which may explain it to you-

At one of our dinners, Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: “You don’t understand. This is a jobs program.” To which Milton replied: “Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels.” source- https://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/

At one point almost everyone was in a field picking crops on the edge of starvation. Thats one way for everyone to be employed but we are richer because fewer people do that and instead do other things.

Re: @Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

@AC

"(1) this means Europeans are paying '8bn more for their chips'"

At least. What happens when the subsidies stop? Its cheaper to make this stuff in Asia so the EU tax payer must cover at least the difference.

"(2) that the UK wouldn't have had to do something similar themselves"

Of course the UK would do the same. Doesnt change the fact that its paying Intel to produce in Europe, hence more expensive.

"The Brexiteer economic ignorance on display is depressing but not surprising."

Your the one telling me that spending tax payer money for locals to pay tax is a clever thing. My previous comments have covered your first section.

Re: @Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

@MarkTriumphant

"Which does somewhat prove the point that we could have done exactly what we did, but within the EU."

Thats the UK supremacist argument. There is no way the UK would have gone alone, not one single member did. Instead they even cancelled their own plans to throw their lot in with the EU. So who here really wants to argue that the UK government is the best of the EU members? That the UK would have the foresight and balls to reject the pressure to join the EU scheme?

Then assuming the UK has a better government than the EU countries (we would probably have Cameron btw) and the UK does so well what would have happened? The EU would have stolen vaccine for the UK. They already almost threw up a hard border in Ireland to stop vaccine coming to the UK and raided manufacturing plants looking for vaccine for export.

There are also accusations that France did steal vaccine destined for the UK. Amusingly its the AZ vaccine that the French were railing against because of its connections to the UK.

Re: @Disgusted Of Tunbridge Wells

@rtfazeberdee

"Very selfish thought there "me get cheap chips""

Dont be stupid. The EU chose to give money to Intel to make chips in Europe. I assume the EU has reasons (maybe security of supply maybe) and this comment section is full of moaning that the UK didnt or wouldnt pay Intel to do it here. As I said some people seem to think the UK lost out.

"even though there is no evidence for that."

Really? Assuming your in the UK have your fuel prices gone up when there was a shortage of petrol? It did here quite a bit. There is huge evidence that mass production reduced prices throughout the world due to increased supply. Supply and demand is real. Look at gas/energy prices currently. This isnt a disputed fact.

"What about all the jobs and supply chains that will be created and then tax that goes back into the local coffers?"

I have been waiting for someone to mention creating jobs. Jobs are a cost not a benefit. At one time almost everyone worked in a field picking crops and barely above starving. Now fewer people do that and more people do more productive jobs that are worth more than the base necessity of eating. And the tax to the local coffers is less than if those people did something worth more and the country just bought cheaper chips.