arethuza

29 ms·

691.
by arethuza 2y ago
As far as I can tell, the Torness AGR plant doesn't have a rail link even though it is pretty close (less than 1km) from the east coast main line.
692.
by arethuza 2y ago
I don't think the UK military has ever operated on the basis of "endlessly deep pockets" e.g. At one point the PM relied on using AA phone boxes and reverse charges calls to launch the V bombers: https://www.telegr
693.
by arethuza 2y ago
A lot of UK nuclear plants (all?) are on the coast but they certainly don't all have docks handy with the kind of equipment necessary to move such items. Rail actually seems a pretty good choice to me.
694.
by arethuza 2y ago
Out of interest, why do you say "Especially not for a king of Scotland"?
695.
by arethuza 2y ago
Pretty much every airline overbooks?
696.
by arethuza 2y ago
My experiences with British Gas are infinitely worse than anything Ryanair has done.... Did you know that suppliers like British Gas can randomly assign you to another supplier, without you asking or even being told? And the other supplier
697.
by arethuza 2y ago
"Everyone ends up paying for 'speedy boarding'" That has never happened on any Ryanair flight I've been on.
698.
by arethuza 2y ago
I actually don't think they are that bad - you just have to appreciate that when they have a maximum bag size (or some other arbitrary limit) they are entirely serious about it. And if you do break their rules they will try and cha
699.
by arethuza 2y ago
That does rather depend where you live in the UK though and also where you regularly travel to...
700.
by arethuza 2y ago
As an aside: can you have an O(0) operation that actually does anything?
701.
by arethuza 2y ago
Of course I think we have all seen horrors like that - what I remember was his completely exasperated response not the technical details of the bug.
702.
by arethuza 2y ago
I can see why you might want to explain something visually but not build it visually - that merge sort example IMHO being a great example of the latter.
703.
by arethuza 2y ago
I can remember about 20 years ago a colleague getting quite frustrated that a bug he had been looking at for quite a long time came down to someone doing something bizarre in an overloaded assignment operator in C++.
704.
by arethuza 2y ago
The lasts bears and lynxes were killed in Britain a long time before there were anything like unified political structures - indeed possibly even before the Angles (English) and Scots even arrived on the island. The last wolf was killed muc
705.
by arethuza 2y ago
In Scotland at least, I don't know about the rest of the UK, the use of large amounts of land for sporting estates (grouse shooting, stalking deer) probably isn't so much of a class issue but more about it being part of a very ver
706.
by arethuza 2y ago
Wasn't that just because it was tiny (0.026 square kilometre) and a population of 35,000? I think for a discussion about "most densely populated square kilometres" we should actually be talking about square kilometres?
707.
Erik Wernquist – Digital Artist – Showreel(erikwernquist.com)
1 points by arethuza 2y ago|0 comments
708.
by arethuza 2y ago
Interesting to note that for off the reputation of the UK as being all densely populated we actually still have more area of peat bogs (9.4%) and moors and heathland (7.5%) as urban fabric (~5.5%): https://figshare.com/artic
709.
by arethuza 2y ago
Of the spectrum of possibilities of how (if) we end up co-existing with AIs then anything like the Culture is definitely towards the positive end. Yes it can look like the humans in the Culture are being kept like pets - but if any group or
710.
by arethuza 2y ago
Apologies, should have been clearer there - the Wasp Factory is not a Culture novel and isn't even SF - it's about a rather troubled teenager and his unusual circle of family and friends.
711.
by arethuza 2y ago
The Irish Time described it as "a work of unparalleled depravity". - though I've forgotten if that is one of the positive or negative reviews ;-)
712.
by arethuza 2y ago
Banks admits that the Culture itself is kind of boring because it is too perfect - so for most of its teeming trillions living their hedonistic lives on their orbitals life is nice and safe and a bit boring to write about. So the stories
713.
by arethuza 2y ago
I wouldn't recommend starting with Use of Weapons - it is probably the best Culture novel but it took me a few readings to really appreciate it. Edit: As far as I recall, Banks originally created the Culture as a background for the
714.
by arethuza 2y ago
I found the meme "Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism" recently and thought it was hilarious (pretty sure Banks would have liked it as well) it does rather capture quite a lot about the spirit of the Culture.
715.
by arethuza 2y ago
Some paperback editions of The Wasp Factory had quotes from reviews included at the start alternating between very positive and very negative reviews. His non-Culture non-SF works as Iain Banks deserve more attention I think - mind yo
716.
by arethuza 2y ago
The UK doesn't even have a single education system (e.g. exams for university entrance and the length of first degrees).
717.
by arethuza 2y ago
Or in the UK - my experiences with Avanti West Coast have been particularly awful. The Avanti trains are actually quite nice but only about 50% of the trains I want to get seem to actually run and then the trains that do run become totally
718.
by arethuza 2y ago
That's right - in February it's full of students ;-)
719.
by arethuza 2y ago
Edinburgh, where I have lived/worked for 40 years and has a population of just over 500K has all of those and more: major arts festivals, good train and growing tram networks, good airport links, very walkable and certainly "feels
720.
by arethuza 2y ago
Ha! - I had no idea thanks

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