Thankfully, we have unlimited planetary resources (which we can burn with zero consequences) which will compensate for all the massive heat loss on a ~90% glazed north elevation.
Kate de Selincourt
@katedes.bsky.social
Writer - sustainable building and the environment
Hey UK #energy people - an organisation I’m working with has been quoted £12k to have the gas supply removed and capped after they switched to heat pumps. Any suggestions for how they might avoid these charges? @richardlowes.bsky.social
Last chance to respond to this consultation - it closes today! Annoyingly they haven't put the exact closing time on it, but the cut-off is usually 11:59pm on the day
Tits McGee@scientits.bsky.social · 3w agoSelf-employed people! Sorry to put a downer on your Sunday, but in case you'd not seen, the Government wants us to pay our tax *monthly* like we're employees or something With the World Cup and all the politics, I'd missed the consultation they put out last month, which is here: 1/
Behind the bewildering transformation of British universities, are management consultants being paid millions Really proud to have this vital piece on our unis are being gutted from the inside by @jheathershaw.bsky.social on Democracy for Sale. Do read democracyforsale.substack.com/p/inside-bri...
Inside Britain's university crisis
As teaching staff face job loss, their bosses have netted pay rises and bought advice from a “vampiric” management consultancy, writes Prof. John Heathershaw of the University of Exeter
democracyforsale.substack.com
The fact that national and international climate plans rely so heavily on CCS has long persuaded me that we are, in fact, screwed.
Simon Evans@drsimevans.carbonbrief.org · 2d agoQ&A: Does the world need 'carbon-capture and storage' to reach net-zero? Described by IPCC as "critical", it has repeatedly fallen short Today, it captures just 0.2% of global CO2 from fossil fuels Great piece by my @carbonbrief.org colleague @joshgabbatiss.bsky.social www.carbonbrief.org/...
My view on the COVID pandemic is: if you think that was bad, wait til you try 3C of warming
If by "the new normal" you mean "hotter than last year" then yes, this is the new normal.
And here is some of that "Mediterranean lifestyle", as reported by today's Telegraph website...
This notion that the purpose of writing essays is to have an essay-shaped object to hold at the end of it is just... wild, and incredibly widely held apparently? Have these people never... written an essay?
Charlotte Weatherill@ckweatherill.bsky.social · last wk.The point isn't to produce essays, it's to teach students how to think for fuck's sake. The minute you automate that, it's over. You might as well close the course. Which they're also doing. This is an attack on learning, and everyone is just shrugging.
Uh, sorry, if you are - ahem - talking to your own spectacles, you are definitely "breaking away from the moment"
Katie Martin@katie0martin.ft.com · last wk.the non-pervert use cases for pervert glasses are just so *lame*. These things will literally never happen with pervert glasses, which are aimed pretty squarely, as we know, at perverts. www.meta.com/en-gb/blog/m...
Urgh this pisses me off so much. It's so slack.
Ed Newton-Rex@ednewtonrex.bsky.social · last wk.I've confirmed that the UK's new Sovereign AI Fund does no due diligence on whether AI companies use copyrighted work without permission before investing in them. It took me 3 Freedom of Information requests to find this out: 🧵 1/10
Why do total strangers think that drumming their fingers impatiently on the desk and barking "Kate, I'm still waiting for your response" - while their little helper nags me and counts off the days - is going to make me want to be friends?
Andy Burnham’s promise to deliver a new generation of council housing could transform the UK’s response to the housing crisis. But, argues hannahfearn.bsky.social, building the homes is only half the battle. national.thelead.uk/p/the-house-...
The house that Burnham builds
A new generation of council homes is promised but the myths of who gets them are taking hold
national.thelead.uk
Peter's Law of Chatbot Accuracy*: "everything you read that's produced by an LLM is absolutely true, except for the rare output about which you happen have expert knowledge". *Remixed from Knoll's Law of Media Accuracy, where the exact same rules apply!
By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)@doctorow.pluralistic.net · last wk.AI is a normal tech. That means there are times when it is useful and times when it is pointless or actively harmful. One rule of thumb for chatbots is that they can only provide useful information to experts who have the discernment to ignore the defective output that LLMs *always* emit. 60/
2/4 Now, after building their lives here on the promise of a five-year route to indefinite leave to remain, they could see that goalpost moved to 15 years. Frankly, it is a disgrace. We should not be treating workers like this.
Germany, Switzerland etc... not only have a different balance of manufacturing vs services but also a corporate model in which companies support vocational ed at scale. We have neither. Schools/colleges aren't the problem.
Someone needs to have a chat about the Climate Crisis with this mayor. The century has a very long way to go and things are going to get much hotter.
This is a candidate for my "your most age coded opinion" (as gets requested on here from time to time) - that "the Victoria line is one of the new ones"
Renomed@renomed.bsky.social · last wk.How They Dug the Victoria Line (1969) — The inside story of the construction of the London Underground's Victoria Line. (1969)
There is one significant factor missing from this, and it is unpaid care work (predominantly done by women). And part of the reason it exists is because social care in its other forms is poor or unaffordable.
Alastair Meeks@alastairmeeks.bsky.social · last wk.The hill I will die on is that this is not a major problem. Right now, people self-insure. There is no market to insure against this risk and trust me insurers would readily create one if there were an appetite for one. And people are broadly correct about this. 1/5
Everyone who uses "smart glasses" to be legally required to strap one of these to their head and light it up when the camera is on
Under a Binface government, anyone who doesn’t accept human-made climate change as fact will be sent back to school, from Year 1 right the way to A Levels, to see if anything goes in the second time round. #VoteBinface
Wondering if the smoky smell was from Canada; actually it's more likely to be from 30 miles up the road. I don't like the smell of the new climate, I have to say www.msn.com/en-gb/news/u...
MSN
msn.com
📣 Conference Speakers - @Marianne Heaslip & @Helen Grimshaw 💬 People First Retrofit ⭐ Check out the full programme: buff.ly/jqJzO0X
Blimey! Write-up is part-paywalled but certainly looks like a decisive result. I've never had asthma as such, but I did have a persistent tickly cough before we swapped from gas to induction, so I find this entirely plausible.
Sammy Roth@sammyroth.bsky.social · 2w agoInsane new research. Scientists gave asthma patients free electric stoves to replace their gas stoves, then checked to see if symptoms improved. Not only did symptoms improve, ditching gas was *better than medicine.* Details in today's newsletter: www.climatecoloredgoggles.com/p/electric-s...
Apparently employment law is also driving this, there is no problem in Germany where delivery drivers are employees and the company is responsible for the bikes.
"The EU has anti-dumping tariffs specifically designed to keep low-quality Chinese products out of its markets. But the UK has not kept pace with these since Brexit and recently dropped rules specifically targetting Chinese e-bikes, boasting that it would provide an economic boost. " Incredible work
