James Dickson

Weirdly enough, one of the first CDs I encountered when I moved to France in the early 2000s

The Primary Energy Fallacy is the idea that all primary energy from fossil fuels must be replaced with equivalent amount of clean energy.

BUT: Not necessary because >2/3 of all primary energy is lost as waste heat.

Electrification+renewables are far more efficient.

medium.com/@jan.rosenow...

Video: a Japanese scientist was attacked by flies while giving the acceptance speech for his Ig Nobel Prize-winning research paper that proved painting Zebra-like stripes on cows led to a decrease in biting fly attacks.

This is my issue with politics lately. Basically, every announcement assumes the reader has an utter lack of curiosity or knowledge to the point that it's just meaningless chaff.

The government's immigration policy is now the exact policy they dismissed when Kemi suggested it in spring.

Finding out, even after years living here, that there are yet more weird and super specific ways in which this rivalry has played out over centuries.

I remember back to after the 2000s US invasion of Iraq the then Labour govt made a show of doing public consultations on how NZ gets its international news, since our key sources for news at the time were US-UK-Oz networks (countries supporting the war). And then... nothing seemed to change

Well, the UK doesn't like its own export strengths, so no surprise the political parties don't like their own voters. All part of the transition from traditional economic models that is now over 40 years in the making and still denied.

Agree with this - it's one of the striking things about the nostalgia for a base made up of "old blue collar" occupations, it leans heavily towards very masculine stereotypes

Striking to me that the lower PMC -- the anchor for Labour and the segment of other parties' voters who should be most persuadable -- is mostly female-dominated occs.

Given choice b/n wooing women and wooing "manly" working class, all parties choose latter. Not just cultural nostalgia, but sexism.

British Politics' Midlife Crisis Why British Parties Can't Make Peace with Their Actual Voters

On the morning of Keir Starmer's conference speech here's a new post on an odd psychopathology in British politics - our main parties don't like the people who vote for them - the dreaded Professional Managerial Class. And so they are acting out like a divorced dad seeking cooler voters. 1/n

Anyway back to Labour. Are they indeed too reliant on the dread PMC? Could they shift effectively on economic or cultural positions to win back voters they are losing? Here's how the voting base for social democratic parties has changed across Europe from @jrgingrich.bsky.social and Hausermann

The "which English-speaking country's politics is he referring to here?" challenge

A lot of this comes down to senior figures around the Labour leadership that wish they could dissolve Labour's current voter base and elect another

Periodic reminder that most Western countries are in competition for migrants to keep their social insurance systems afloat

The volunteering thing was so weird.

Oh right, working, paying taxes, paying an additional extra-special-just-for-you health tax, paying punitive visa fees *and* (already) not claiming any benefits isn't enough now.

Apparently you have to do some slave labour too.

Well, isn't that a nice?

I do think, if I were the government, I'd have probably just banked on the fact the last few years of immigration were an anomaly driven by a combination of transitory factors that would mean I'd get to announce "we have halved net migration in the two years since taking office" without any work.

do people not realise that everyone already legally has to prove right to work in this country, using a combination of ID forms, and any job that currently skirts the law in this is just… gonna keep doing that

Could have been more ambitious on alignment with that reset agenda last year and achieved better growth numbers.

But then that's this government's hokey cokey, one step to the right, one step to the left.

1/ Whatever you think of digital ID, the process matters.
And in 2025, this is still how we make big public policy. 👇

Is this largely due to ACT? I don't really understand why they have any particularly strong opinion about Israel, tbh.

Without the courage to make a case based on realistic appreciation of the challenges balanced with a vision of what a better long term outcome could look like then parties won't get much movement on issues from voters either.

YouTube video by BBC News Huntington's disease successfully treated for first time | BBC News

OMG 😭

Huntington's is an inherited disease that's like Alzheimers + Parkinson's all in one. NOW: "once the gene therapy has been delivered into the brain... [it] injects a piece of DNA to reprogram the neuron to become a factory for its own cure."

LIFE SAVING!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhEx...

I also worry about this as the partner of someone with an evisa. I would be much more reassured with them having a physical card that says 'resident'

I get that the news cycle is packed right now, but I just heard from a colleague at the Smithsonian that this is fully a GIANT SQUID BEING EATEN BY A SPERM WHALE and it’s possibly the first ever confirmed video according to a friend at NOAA

10 YEAR OLD ME IS LOSING HER MIND (a thread 🧵)

This is something that is on a lot of UN staff minds

Unless this government can change the narrative about immigration - some honesty, and probably more focusing on the lack of control people feel in their life that leads to claims asylum seekers have it all better - then it will just be paving the way to Reform.

Beyond Newtonian causation in neuroscience The traditional mechanistic framework must give way to a richer understanding of how brains actually generate behavior over time.

Thanks to @pessoabrain.bsky.social and @thetransmitter.bsky.social for featuring our paper and to @aliyarumana.bsky.social and Peter Tse for engaging so generously with the ideas! 😊 www.thetransmitter.org/the-big-pict...

Replacing the term ILR with something like 'Permanent Resident' or 'Long-term Resident' would make it more intuitive for both applicants and the general public

A cyberattack hit airport systems in Berlin, London, Brussels, and several other cities.

Berlin: access to systems was completely shut down for “security reasons”
Heathrow: “technical failure”

Specialists are working to restore operations.

British students lack ‘drive’ of their American peers, says Business Secretary | LBC The Business Secretary has defended comments he made at a meeting with investors where he said British students lack the ‘drive’ and ‘vigour’ of their American peers.

There's a whole convention of European ministers complaining about the low ambition of their students compared to what they say American students are like and always - always - when they say 'American students' they mean 'Stanford'.
www.lbc.co.uk/article/brit...