Last time I heard a deal talked about in serious terms (which was some years ago), I believe the plan was for a “permanent loan” to Greece in exchange for a rotating selection of loans in return. Greece has a pretty impressive collection of ancient artifacts, and it would give British museum-goers a chance to see them.

You can get local FM transmitters. USB ones are quite common (i.e. for turning computer audio output into FM), and there are ones that can take input through a 3.5mm jack too.

So in theory you could take any cheap DAB radio, plug in an FM transmitter, and then have all your FM radios tuned into that.

Presuming that’s an AI summary, but it only covers the bit that’s not blocked by the paywall. It’s one of those that has the first couple of paragraphs visible and then blocks the remainder, and that’s just summarised those first few paragraphs. The meat of it, where presumably it tells us about the shenanigans from the local councils and the details of the “policy failures and internal conflicts”, remains a mystery.

Paywalled, unfortunately…

Would you say that he is in fact licensed to thrill?

That’s public transport for you. You pay for one ticket, you get one seat; you don’t get a whole row to yourself just because you don’t like other people.

Pay for first class if you want more space and a seat on your own.

What do they actually mean by “model identifier”? Serial number? IMEI?

Europe is less a place than it is a state of mind.

Arianespace has fallen behind, but they’re not out of the picture. They’re still by far the largest competitor to SpaceX, and they’re aiming for their 7th generation Ariane to be a reusable design.

Arianespace is an Airbus and Safran subsidiary, so it’s not like they don’t have the engineering oomph behind them.

Yeah, but it’s a dry heat.

Worth noting that these were changes implemented by the previous Tory government. The new Labour government was more or less happy to leave it to ride, but now it’s been successfully challenged in court they’re happy to let it fall by the wayside.

The “long story short” on this project: Swindon station is currently surrounded by an absurd amount of flat surface carparking. The majority owned by Network Rail, some owned by the Council, and some bits in private ownership. There’s also a major brownfield site (some listed buildings which were part of the original GWR factories) owned by the Council, and a massive derelict tower block owned by Network Rail.

The project aim is to build a new multi storey carpark north of the railway line, along with a new station entrance (currently it is only accessible from the south), and then redevelop all the surface carparks into something more productive.

UKRI are already based there, and Bath Uni, Oxford Uni, and the Royal Agriculture Uni all have outposts there too, so the hope is that they and other universities could be persuaded to take a significant chunk of the new real estate. Oxford Brookes Uni and a performing arts college called Wilkes Academy both also have campuses elsewhere in town and there’s hope that both of them may consider taking new campuses there.

Swindon’s town centre is exceptionally dire, so a lot of hopes are pinned on this as being a catalyst for some regeneration.

Sure, but that applies to the UK too. London has a higher cost of living than Los Angeles; averages being averages, this is weighed against lots of cheaper places to live (with massive unemployment and stagnated economics).

Cost of living in the UK is about 12% lower than the US, including housing costs. But the average salary is about half of the US salary. So you can see that that doesn’t really cover it.

Source: https://livingcost.org/cost/united-kingdom/united-states

Just looked on that link for the UK. The average is listed as £63k, which is $85k.

So you’re not exactly disproving the point that that type of high salary is a US thing.

Sure, but the specs aren’t directly comparable.

They also still manufacture the RPi 4, which starts at £33- which is £23 in 2012 money.

but they’re not cheap any more

People say this, but they really are still cheap.

The original Raspberry Pi Model B launched for £22 in 2012. The entry level Raspberry Pi 5 is £46, but adjusted for inflation that’s only £32 in 2012 money. So only £10 more expensive in real terms.

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W is only £14.40, which is only £10 in 2012 money. Compare this to the original Raspberry Pi Model A, which launched for £16.

People look at the headline cost of the high end RPi 5s (£115 for the 16GB model, £76 for the 8GB), but fail to recognise that there was nothing comparable to these in the Raspberry Pi lineup before, and these are not the only models in the Raspberry Pi lineup now.

Ask a non-protesting friend or family member to take it with them about their daily routine?

I’m sure my mum would be happy to look after my phone for a day if it meant getting one over on the authorities. And if anyone asks, I’m just a good son who likes to hang out with his mum.

I was really impressed by how lightweight and gorgeous it is.

Maybe a controversial opinion here, but the one thing that everyone says about it is that it looks gorgeous, and I really don’t see it. Never have.

Even back when I first tried it out, maybe 15 years ago, I thought it looked strangely retro. Nowadays, compared to the eye candy that is completely standard in GNOME, KDE, MacOS, Windows etc., it looks incredibly dated.

It’s all hard edges, low res icons, ugly fonts, and eccentric design choices. Yeah, it can make window elements transparent, but you can’t dine out on that one trick for ever.

Happy Father’s Day, gang! Hope it’s all been pleasant!