Interesting Links for 27-11-2018

[andrewducker]

UK has weakest wage growth in advanced G20 nations

(tags: uk economy wages fail )

This review of the "Kerblam!" episode of Dr Who neatly sums up how I feel about it.

I've not had any episodes I loathed this season. But also no episodes I loved. I've spent the season in a state of "meh". Which is a real shame.
(tags: drwho review tv )

Brexit: Government admits UK could attempt to unilaterally revoke Article 50 if MPs want to

(tags: uk europe )

Edinburgh tram staff vote to strike during festive period

(tags: edinburgh trams unions )

Sark electricity: The Channel Island that could lose its power

(tags: electricity economics )

Parents learn, babies talk: How coaching moms and dads improves infants' language skills

(tags: parenting language )

Intermittent fasting: No advantage over conventional weight loss diets

(tags: diet food )

First genetic map of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

(tags: adhd genetics )

Thirty-year-old discovers imperial units, gets very angry about them.

(tags: measurement history funny )

Labour to block anti Brexit parties from taking part in TV debate

(tags: UK europe OhForFucksSake Labour tv )

Does teen cannabis use lead to behavior problems -- or vice versa?

(tags: marijuana behaviour )

Comments

Sark Electricity

[danieldwilliam]

66p per kwh is an awful lot.


Not sure what Sark does about it's electricity problem. Lack of capital is going to be an issue.

I'd start with as much solar PV as I can stick on rooftops. I'd be surprised if people facing that sort of price hadn't already done that. If the price you are comparing against is 66p/kwh then batteries might look economic for more use cases than they currently do.

I'm not sure how much farming there is on Sark but they could look at either a bio-gas generator or a bio-mass generator.

An inter connector to Guernsey would help no end and might allow a few wind turbines to be installed. Guernsey is connected to the French mainland grid via Jersey. The cables much run pretty close to Sark.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guernsey_Electricity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Islands_Electricity_Grid

My very much back of the fag packet guess on replacing the Sark diesel generator with solar PV and Powerwalls suggest a cost for the solar panels of about £2m (£4k per person) and, at £8k per Powerwall and 1 powerwall between every 2 people, roughly £8k per person in Capex. With Opex at say 10% of Capex per annum I'm getting a levelised cost of electricity of about 33pence per kilowatt hour for a system that will be not as reliable as the UK main grid but probably more reliable than the current system - at about half the cost.

[danieldwilliam]

I'm in a similar position to you. I'm not hating Doctor Who but I'm exactly loving it.

I am inching towards the position that I don't much care for Whitaker's performance overly.

Fasting

[danieldwilliam]

Personally I find intermittent fasting easier to do than a general calorie control diet. It's logistically easier in my family context and psychologically easier for me to manage my bad eating habits on two days a week rather than 7.

Re: Fasting

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I think most effective diets are about finding something sustainable.

Low carb works for me in that way. But at least partially because I feel really ill if I eat sugar.

[jack]

This review of the "Kerblam!" episode of Dr Who neatly sums up how I feel about it.

Yeah. Sadly, I'm scared to say so, because many of the characteristic things about this series are incredibly good and I love them, the companions, jodie whittaker, the episodes focusing on social problems, the "not always the easy answer" resolutions, and I don't want anyone to take the idea that it didn't work, go back to the status quo.

But I do have a problem of finding most of the episodes just a bit boring :( I don't know if that's a problem with me, although several other people have said so too. If it appeals to people who haven't seen much Who I'd accept it as a good thing even if it doesn't work as well for me.

But though I appreciate that article's analysis, my response was different. They felt the companions hadn't fulfilled their potential, so maybe lose one of them. I mean, maybe, but I'd say focus on what we DO want. I think that's a strong plot -- not getting so focused on "subverting easy answers" and "doctor not fixing racism" that they forget to give the characters something else to succeed in. And more companion stuff -- it's all there, they're great together, and with secondary characters, funny, interesting. Just make it actually happen, like the article said, there was a whole episode about Yaz's heritage, show more of her interaction with it!

Rosa did that pretty well, we got to see the characters doing things, and got a painting of the situation with a clear moral (I mean, ok, "racism is bad" is an obvious one, but better than "amazon is bad but also really useful but something something jobs but corporate exes are scummy but well-meaning but that doesn't forgive everything but oh shit what"), and we got stuff about the companions everyday lives. And the other episodes did some more of that, but found it hard to keep up the pace.

[heron61]

While I quite liked most of this season of Doctor Who, I thought Kerblam! was fairly bad. It spent more than half the episode building up this quite nice anti-corporate message and then both entirely undercut it and replaced it with a random terrorist, which felt both ham-handed, random, and perhaps like a writer got told not to annoy large corporations.