It's basically the UK's Fox News but perhaps even less impartial as it let's politicians host shows - it definitely feels like an attempt to shift the Overton Window to the right. Quite why it hasn't been sanctioned by Ofcom is unclear.
Around this time, the charity Hope not Hate published an investigation reporting that Paul Marshall, the founder of news and commentary website UnHerd and co-owner of what it called the “right-wing channel GB News”, had used his X account in a way that suggests “he holds a deeply disturbing view of modern Britain.”
The holding company that owns GB News is called All Perspectives Ltd. It has two major shareholders: Legatum Ltd and Sir Paul, who own 41.2 per cent of the company each. Marshall’s fortune is put at an estimated £800m from his career as a hedge fund manager. He does not post on X much. He does, however, retweet and “like” what Hope not Hate described as “notorious hate accounts such as the Britain First deputy leader Ashlea Simon, American anti-Muslim campaigner Amy Mek and the shady Italian anti-migration account Radio Genoa.”
Marshall, who is also bidding for ownership of the Telegraph and the Spectator, “has repeatedly liked and retweeted extremist content from an array of far-right and conspiracy theorist accounts,” the charity found. A representative for Marshall issued a statement noting that “as most X/Twitter users know, it can be a fountain of ideas, but some of it is of uncertain quality and all his posts have now been deleted to avoid any further misunderstanding.” What was “misunderstood” was not explained, but if the head honcho likes and retweets views like this, then the cast of eccentrics and Looney Tunes characters given airtime on his channel begins to make more sense.
Here is the Hope Not Hate article that draws from.
GB News has paid Conservative MPs more than £660,000 in appearance fees and salaries since it launched, against just £1,100 to Labour MPs, Guardian analysis shows.
I'm American but would really appreciate it if aubergine caught on here across the pond. I know it's French (and from prior languages) but I commend the UK for sticking with it. In contrast, eggplant sounds so crude and unappetizing. If you've Americanized this one, please stop.
No way man, it's a great vehicle for flavor. Soak the slices in a basil balsamic garlic marinade a for an hour then roast them in the oven, simple and delicious.
What I hate about "eggplant" is that none of the varieties that anybody actually eats look even remotely like an egg. It's a massive purple banana-shape. They also don't taste like eggs, smell like eggs, or get used like eggs.
It'd be like calling cucumbers "cheesefruit" or something. It's just destined to baffle.
Brit here who used to hate driving automatics. I used to drive on my gears a lot. A mix coasting/hyper-miling and gear breaking. Every time I drove an automatic it felt really wrong as it never changed gear as I would. I felt I was less in control.
Now I drives EVs, no gears for it to get wrong. I thought not changing gear would bother me, but it never feels in wrong gear, so I don't notice. Though this is a hybrid I drive and it's so odd to hear and feel the complete disconnect with the drive and engine.
This is a debate is thing that is just going to go away with ICE cars.
I live on the foothills of Bannau Brycheiniog having moved from silicon fen and I'm so grateful for the countryside we have all over the UK. The right to roam is a cherished right 😀
I believed it to be an absolute fact that all cats are female and all dogs are male. I had no idea how reproduction worked at this point, so it just made sense to me.
Then one day, a classmate was talking about her cat and how "HE" had done something funny. I had to clarify, "Your cat is a boy?!?" and my entire understanding of animals was shattered that day.
Two spring to mind. I could rant forever about them but I'll try to keep it short.
First was an apprenticeship at a furniture logistics company. I was essentially an extremely overworked and underpaid spreadsheet monkey (I got paid £4 an hour). I received no training and gained no valuable experience or qualifications. In hindsight it's clear to me the company just wanted cheap labour from vulnerable teenagers.
After this I took a job handing out leaflets for a store which buys/sells goods. The job was in fact not to hand out leaflets like I thought but to harass people I saw walking towards CEX (to try and convince them to sell their games/consoles to us instead of CEX). Obviously this was seedy as hell and embarrassing. I'd get told off at the end of the day every day for not bringing in multiple PS4s or whatever.
The visual design of cars - small, sleek and angular instead of giant, fat and round (however the engines were all leaded petrol etc)
Nothing was tracking me or spying on me (perhaps except the PE Teacher)
Fewer things were packed full of artificial sweeteners
The music charts used to be a thing that mattered. We were entering the era of manufactured trash pop, but there were still some genuinely good songs released, which charted, such as this one (Youtube Link)
The "Golden Age" of action films (all the Stallone/Schwarzenegger ones etc)
Lots of small independent shops and manufacturers, rather than 10 mega-corporations
That's my feeling, they're very different beasts. The British one is like a bespoke gem and the American one is that retooled for the US comedy writing system.
What feels like a controversial opinion, but it really shouldn't be, I don't think the US Office is as good as the UK Office.
The UK Office felt like a documentary, and really felt like places I had worked and knew people like that.
Once the US Office got out of copying the UK one, it just become a sitcom that had people talking to the audience.
I mean it was good, but it was still basically an American sitcom.
It's like WWDITS. The film was awesome, and the first season that still involved the Kiwis was good, but it quickly subsided into standard American dross. Winning a Golden Globe for basically not being WWDITS and just being Matt Berry was the icing.
Quickly becoming a moot point. EVs don’t even have gears to shift. Single speed forward or reverse. Shifting gears will eventually be like dialing a rotary phone.
I'm not sure if that's the most efficient use of resources. EVs can only be gearless if they have over a half-ton of batteries providing huge amounts of power to their electric motors.
PHEVs, such as Prius Prime, Volvo or other cars (US Market, sorry I don't know UK market too well), do have an EV-only mode. But the smaller batteries force them to use CVT or other automatic transmissions so that their torque/horsepower bands can be better matched.
I'm not convinced that having all of our cars filled with half-ton to 1-ton batteries is the best design.
I’m going to knock your socks off… The vast majority of “normal” EVs don’t have gears as such. There are one or two supercar EVs that have a high and low gear but that’s it. Many hybrids don’t have gears either. My Accord Hybrid has an “eCVT” which is just marketing bullshit for covering up the fact that it’s functionally an EV with a gasoline powered generator. Honda has programmed the ECU to do fake shifts to make boomers feel more comfortable with the new technology. It’s only imitating an automatic transmission with software trickery. The gas engine isn’t even mechanically connected to the wheels for like 95% of the driving I do. IIRC that tech was borrowed or heavily influenced by the Prius.
I'm well aware of the larger torquebands across wider RPMs of electric motors vs ICE motors, especially the high torque available at 0 RPM. But that doesn't change physics or chemistry.
Porsche Taycan isn't a supercar, and it has this high/low gear / Two-speed transmission for its EV, because at higher RPMs even an EV will run out of torque, and it becomes a good idea to convert RPM vs Torque through the use of a gearbox. Gearboxes / Transmissions have been used for a hundred years. They are among the most sophisticated parts of a modern car, and are made with cheap steel and highly automated manufacturing today.
Every motor will have a limit to their useful torquebands. EVs have the widest torque vs RPM in existence ever, but even the biggest motors and biggest EVs have problems.
This is complicated by the fact that Hybrids are far smaller electric-motors with far less battery power than the pure EVs like a Porsche Tycan. As such, the incredibly popular Toyota Prius Prime opts instead for a proper CVT transmission. And I'm willing to bet that Prius Prime 2024 is getting a better driving experience in practice.
Furthemore: there's something to be said about sophistication of dumber / simpler metals. Steel is found everywhere. Trading cheap steel for Lithium, Copper, and Cobalt sounds like a bad idea to me in general. I guess that copper/lithium is lighter than Steel so saving on weight is helpful, but there's some crazy bad environmental problems associated with these rarer and more complex metals.
I've decided to do some research on eCVT. I was surprised at its actual implementation. Toyota Prius, Ford Escape, and probably Honda Accord does this.
Its basically planetary gear magic. A computer can control two or three inputs, while the outputs are hooked up to the wheels of the car. By changing the speed of the variable input (likely the electronic engine)... the effective gear ratio of the "constant" input (likely the ICE engine) is modified. In the most extreme case, the variable input runs backwards to have the "overdrive" gear ratio.
It seems like the Honda Accord is a planetary gear eCVT system. Planetary gears are always so cool, I didn't realize that a CVT could be implemented with one (albeit with a hybrid vehicle where you have 2 or more powered inputs).
EDIT: it appears that you are correct. Honda's Hybrid system is different than what I'm familiar with (which is what the above video demonstrated).
So you're right with regards to Honda Accord Hybrid. Very interesting. Its always surprising to me how different car companies are with their implementations.
I’m so glad you found that video! I’ve seen it before and was having trouble finding it again to post a link here. Since you’ve already fallen down this rabbit hole, might I suggest you watch some reviews of the new 11th gen Accord. Honda is not only adding fake shift points to an eCVT that does NOT HAVE FIXED GEAR RATIOS but they are matching those fake shifts with fake engine noises piped through the speakers inside the cabin. They’ve also regressed from the elegant push button gear selector in my 10th gen to a completely unnecessary shift knob protruding from the console in the 11th gen. It’s actually embarrassing how much they’ve had to dumb the car down for people who are either stuck in the past or people who are weekend race car drivers. Mercifully, most of this garbage fakery is only really noticeable if you really flog it or put the car in “Sport” mode.
I seem to use movie when describing the blockbuster/B-movie end of the scale, and film when talking about a quality bit of cinema. But I also am more likely to call a US flick a movie and a Brit one a film.
I like the sound of the word autumn, and particularly autumnal. I can see those reds and browns and feel the crisp air. Fall does give more opportunity for puns and easier rhymes, I guess.
It’s too greater a power to hand to an imperfect state. The justice system can never be reliable enough to ensure someone is wrongfully executed.
That said, loosing decades of life to a wrongful life sentence can’t be undone either. So I would say opposition to it the death penalty goes hand in hand with support for reforming and improving the justice system
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