richardjfoster.bsky.social
Materials Physicist, Injured runner, orienteer, hockey player and cyclist. Failing swimmer. Fights weeds at the allotment and in the garden.
Map drawing person.
Unhealthy interest in politics.
Can often be found in Pleasant Green and Tanis
473 posts
39 followers
138 following
Discussion Master
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Perhaps you should try not having an elected judiciary like normal countries.
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Not yet had chance to listen, but hope you did call it "the single tax" because that's often what it is!
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There are many people who think betting markets are better and more predictive than polls.
When I question why they think this is, the answer is usually along the lines of: "because money" as if that were some magical filter that makes it accurate.
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I think I'd almost always want Ambrose out of that lot.
McGrath and Anderson just weren't as terrifying.
My feeling is that Bumrah is just awkward rather than terrifying.
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Journalism is hard.
Headlines for clicks based on unverified sources that happen to fit your priors is much easier.
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They obviously haven't read your book! You converted me to the idea.
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Most stuff sort of actually works not too badly.
Even govt services. Yeah, sometimes they're a bit slow, and quite often make mistakes, but PAYE, the NHS etc is all pretty good, and we don't have banks that charge for account etc.
I mean want to look at somewhere shit, then most of USA?
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Correction. Arsene Wenger's bank balance is happy.
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Arsene Wenger is happy
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'old man yells at cloud'
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Almost like the revamped world club cup thing is a total nonsense.
A great Arsene Wenger idea. Like world cups every other day.
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I can do most of Yorkshire and a few others and that's about it.
But once I've done it once, I can usually remember what it's like.
I still remember my first pre-barcode runs at Leeds Hyde Park Time Trial and that was nearly 20 years ago now
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Allied to the fact that noone has yet built a commercial SMR prototype....
At least it's slightly less crazy than the thorium reactor types!
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Great chart!
I still marvel at the nuclear industry's ability to ignore a negative cost learning curve and still have everyone believe it's the solution to all problems though
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Too many people for the course these days. It's nearly dangerous on that path down the back.
Surprised it's still allowed.
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I can do the Leeds based ones next if you like.....
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Graves and Concord are also bumpy. Barnsley is up and down and twisty from memory but not too bad.
Rotherham one is quite good fun and a park I'd never been to before.
Clumber Park is just nice (but give time for parking).
Cusworth Hall is an odd route, easy to cheat and nasty slog up to finish.
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Endcliffe? Waaay too many people for the course
It wouldn't get allowed if new today. (I'm surprised it's allowed to continue tbh).
Castle was surprisingly fun (from the part of Sheffield, as a sheffielder, I don't know v well).
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(and I wouldn't call it a hill! A mild slope at worst! Although I'm a fellrunner and orienteer....)
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Nah, road shoes all the way. Especially given how dry it's been.
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I'd say it's probably quicker than most other S Yorks ones. Millhouses is flat, but lots of turns. Poolsbrook (actually Derbyshire) is similar but multi lap, so lapping issues. Probably more climb at Sandall park and Hillsborough.
Endcliffe is ridiculous.
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It's potentially quick. It's mostly not tarmac underfoot, but from memory it's good trail, so if you're comfy with that then it's quick.
According to my training log, there is 10m climb in the first 600m, and ~8m in the final km.
The rest could be noise.
It runs CW I think if that matters...
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Flat. One lap. Round a big lake.
You have to pay for parking. ANPR barriers can take a few mins to get you through if busy, so don't arrive last minute (says the person who likes arriving at 8.58)
Cafe is Ok and if sunny nice to sit outside
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Remember what happened to the marketing board!
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It's not even a flipping loan.
It's a graduate tax.
But Blair and brown didn't want to call it that.
There are still so many people that believe the student 'loan' is a real debt.
And this is despite Martin Lewis doing his best to educate people how it actually works.
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The CWC is a shining example of how not to organise a global tournament as it just drags on and on and on.
At least FIFA schedules several matches in a day unlike the ICC - in the era of streaming, there should be matches played in parallel
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Tbh I suspect much of the data is already available...sadly.
Getting on board and making sure the privacy controls are robust should be what people are campaigning for instead of fighting it.
And don't forget that anonymised data has huge potential public and health research potential to unis etc
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That is Labours inept policy messaging for which the No10 chief of staff has his finger in.
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And then of course, it would allow for better financial and political accountability: if a politician or a council say something is going to cost £x, based on y people, well we have that data, we can interrogate the numbers and see things more clearly. /End
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And then it allows for the positive case for immigration to be made: for example we would know more or less precisely what skills different areas need rather than broad aggregate amounts. We know we need more e.g. dentists now, but the trends and patterns would be clearer much further out /3
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You can then link to local NHS services so we know precisely how GPs/dentists/hospital services they need and of what type, rather than sudden crises appearing like not enough dentists
/2
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I get there are privacy concerns, but imagine a council knew exactly how many people were living in their area on a more or less real time basis so they can plan services, rather than waiting 10 years for an inaccurate and expensive census which is out of date by the time they get it.
/1
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(that should have been *now* not know. I think I was having two different phrasings in my head at the same time)
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I was very much against ID cards when mooted 20 years ago. However, having read Georgina Sturges' excellent book Bad Data, I know think it's a must.
As long as it is done properly.
The savings from simply being able to properly link databases would be huge.
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Someone I know refers to the "gas board" occasionally
I'm not sure if she means Northern Gas Networks or her gas supplier...
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They know, but the (any) benefits= scroungers attitude that spawns from RW libertarianism has set like concrete across our political and media ecosystem.
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MK Dons still in with a shot to beat this record then...
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I'm backing away from this now, because I think you're getting cross at a point I'm not making.
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I agree it was made - and this was what changed my mind on it. But it wasn't the selling point that was used widely in the general consciousness - everything we heard from the news, the papers was often just about cutting journey times because it was a convenient headline.
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I'm not implying anything horrible at all.
It is a common feeling from many outside London that they'd rather not go - for many different reasons (a common one is that it's too busy).
I'm personally happy to visit on occasion, but I know many people who won't!
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I suspect if you did a straw poll in the centre of Leeds, a lot would not care about going to London or not.....
My average is probably only once per year! (Now exclusively museum visiting)
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No! This kind of thinking was the issue!
We in Leeds don't care if it takes 30mins less to get to London - we don't particularly want to go in the first place!
But make the argument that it increases capacity meaning your train to work every day is faster and more reliable....
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I recommend Secrets of the Motorways on YouTube - frequently refers to the ringways project
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The nimbys were never going to be won round. And again were, as usual, given too much of a voice.
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It was not sold, for example, on Look North, as having any other benefits other than journey time until after journey time.
I accept that advocates made the capacity argument, but for the general public in the north it was about journey times.
It was never sold right until after cancellations
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That's the PR around it I'm afraid. When mooted, all that was talked about was how much faster we could get to London.
(Shock horror a lot of people don't care about London!! -joking sort of)
When cancelled, the *real* benefits around capacity increase for the north were explained a lot better
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This is the same on an individual scale and at institutional scale - hence why we (as a country) bung money at Oxbridge/London (e.g. Crick), then the next level the Russel group, and then moving downwards....
How much of Oxbridge's performance is down to the fact that they aren't short of cash?
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So, Sheffield doesn't raise as much tax revenue and so doesn't attract the investment money.
It's a classic vicious cycle.
It's the same as in academia: if you've had money from grants before, it becomes easier to get money again.
.....contd
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That then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy doesn't it? London, then SE, gets most investment so it generates most tax revenue, so it gets most investment etc etc.
Comparison between e.g. Sheffield and Manchester is interesting - the latter has had a lot of investment, the former not..... /2
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Mass transit Public transport does move more people quickly and more efficiently than roads do.
But it was one example and it's not just london per se that is the issue for me.
We have a funding formula that says if somewhere makes money for UK then it should get more investment, but.... /1