Interesting Links for 20-05-2022

[andrewducker]

1. The right wing company who own hundreds of local American TV broadcasters

(tags:TV politics usa )

2. No US-UK trade deal if Boris Johnson discards Northern Ireland protocol

(tags:UK Europe NorthernIreland Ireland USA trade )

3. Monkeypox outbreak erupts; US, UK, Spain, Portugal, and more report cases

(tags:disease monkey )

4. Single progressive challenger to Tories wins seats (because of FPTP)

(tags:voting uk fptp OhForFucksSake )

5. Why "Scottish" not "British" now leads Scotland's identity

(tags:Scotland UK identity )

6. SpaceX Paid $250,000 to a Flight Attendant Who Accused Elon Musk of Sexual Misconduct

(tags:ElonMusk abuse sex )

7. Hinkley Point C delayed by a year as cost goes up by £3bn

(tags:nuclearpower uk )

8. OnlyFans Star Got Her Instagram Back by Sleeping With Facebook Employees

(tags:sexwork censorship facebook sex )

9. There's a bunch of fantasy that I struggle with nowadays because it comes across like this.

(tags:StarWars fantasy genetics )

Comments

[channelpenguin]

No. 9 THIS! Also inbuilt powers that you don't need any learning / training / practice.

Hinckley Point

[danieldwilliam]

Who, who could have predicted that a nuclear power plant would be late and over budget?

If only someone could have forecast this?

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

Re: Hinckley Point

[andrewducker]

To be fair they're blaming the delay on Covid and not being able to have nearly as many people on-site, we've that seems pretty reasonable.

But, yeah, they're always late and over budget.

Re: Hinckley Point

[danieldwilliam]

Who amongst us has not blamed a perfectly normal failure on COVID? It's been like a Jubilee for project managers.

Re: Hinckley Point

[channelpenguin]

To be fair, most projects are late and over budget. We are all optimists. Everything takes 3 times as long as you think. (Annoyingly, often even if you know this).

In large projects, it only takes maxing out your upper "error bar" limit on a few subprojects and you are in serious overrun territory.

Underbidding might well get you the tender. Since nearly all large projects go over, it won't look too bad ... and might not even stop you getting multiple contracts...

Re: Hinckley Point

[mellowtigger]

I was a mainframe programmer for a decade. The thing I hated most about the job was the time estimation on proposals. "How long will it take me to do this thing that nobody has ever done before? (If they've done it before, then we should just buy that thing instead of creating it.) I have literally no idea. Would you like me to write down 1 week or 1 month or 1 quarter?"

Re: Hinckley Point

[channelpenguin]

Yup. My own oft-quoted "3x" is from 30 years in software dev. But car, bike, boat, house, garden projects all seem to be the same!

For software of any size above trivial, the largest of the team's individual and collective very best professional estimates .... x3. It took me about 15 years of projects to arrive at this figure and it has proved accurate since. :-). Many experienced colleagues argue for 2 (but I'm often more right when we look back!). If I recall, the good old guys writing the books go for a loose 2.5 ... but they are better than me.

And yes, if it's been done before, buy it! If it *nearly* satisfies your requirements ... change your process to fit the software until it does. This is always quicker and cheaper. Of course few people will take that recommendation! I think that one is general too, not just software (def boats, houses)

Re: Hinckley Point

[danieldwilliam]

That is a fair point.

[anna_wing]

I would so pleased if the end condition was even the establishment of a constitutional monarchy!

[dewline]

1. The US ought to break Sinclair Group like Canada needs to break Postmedia.

2. I don't think Johnson's backers care overmuch about the consequences.

3. We have cases in Canada.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-monkeypox-news-conference-1.6459090

6. No wonder Musk was trying to frame dissent against him as a smear campaign.

8. Extortion should be denounced.

[lilysea]

Monkeypox has landed in Australia too :(

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-20/monkeypox-case-in-sydney-and-melbourne/101084864