What happened in Slough is simply the friction that arises when a community within a community establishes itself with its own values and norms. In the case of Slough that community frankly doesn’t give a toss what the government says or what the laws are – it operates by its own rules as has been the case in many other cities.

Anyone who knows Slough will be aware that the sort of “friction” that takes place there (mass sword fights in streets amongst other things) has been going on for a long time. There’s zero respect for the police and no consequence for that – that’s the underlying problem.

Used to work in a restaurant – one of the prep jobs in the morning was to dice a whole tray of fresh chillies.

Lack of careful handwashing afterwards made nose itching, eye rubbing and even having a slash “memorable”.

– Start with dry pits
– Shake the can well before application as that will help get the right size particles coming out.
– Hold 10-15cm away
– Very short sprays – the mist is enough to cover the whole armpit

Benefits:
– No t-shirt clag
– Less product used / better for the environment

A doctor in Ireland has made a public appeal for the public to donate protective gowns:

https://www.dublinlive.ie/news/dublin-news/st-jamess-hospital-staff-appeal-18118329

PPE supply is clearly a global problem – there’s too much demand and all of the production has been allowed by most countries to drift to low cost economies.

Our health and social care workers are now paying the price.

Virgin have already done 4 out of 8 return flights to China to collect PPE – good to hear BA are doing the same but ultimately there are too many countries trying to buy it and too few companies making it.

johnners – get your point but for years China has allowed its traders to fraudulently use the CE mark (normally used to indicate compliance with European safety standards) to indicate China Export. It fools consumers and professionals and there’s plenty of evidence from Trading Standards of huge volumes of chinese made electronics being unsafe / a fire risk:

https://support.ce-check.eu/hc/en-us/articles/360008642600-How-To-Distinguish-A-Real-CE-Mark-From-A-Fake-Chinese-Export-Mark

This has also been a problem with PPE in Covid with government’s buying equipment from China that then fails basic quality tests – Italy and Spain have both had issues with this.

Another issue with the fake CE marked electrical equipment aside to the risk to consumers is that some insurers won’t pay out for fire damage when the ignition source is equipment that isn’t compliant with relevant legislation and standards.

A quick / safe way of buying online is to look for UK Ltd companies or only buying stuff from Amazon when Amazon UK is the seller. A lot of the apparently UK “sellers” are chinese or hong kong traders when you start to poke around the company details and Amazon will only take the commercial risk selling items that have actually been tested.

Also see:

https://www.tradingstandards.uk/news-policy/news-room/2016/warning-over-fake-chargers-and-second-hand-electrics

https://www.electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk/guidance/product-safety/chargers/

jam bo – looked at the item you posted but the cable length is too short and it’s not designed for continuous operation. Also comes from China so will probably burn the house down at some point :-)

Understood on the DIN rail – thanks for the advice but it is safe to wire up to a mains lead and fused plug on one side and then connect to the Nest Hello on the other side?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-01/china-concealed-extent-of-virus-outbreak-u-s-intelligence-says

Intelligence chatter is that China underplayed the actual death rate by a factor of 15-40 times – which would put them on 45k to 120k deaths and point to it starting months before they’ve currently acknowledged.

Even based on the facts available in the public domain China identified the virus in Mid December and only informed the WHO on 17th January – 2 days after the UK’s patient zero contracted covid at a ski resort in Austria.

It had spread to many countries before the WHO were even informed.

“For example: it would be fair to assume part of the price for let it burn is going to included a lot of health care professionals. Never mind selling the Granny are we ready to sacrifice the people who keep us fit and well for a bit of profit?“

For me this is why I’m completely happy to isolate and maintain social distancing for as long as it takes.

It’s all very well saying we should end the lockdown but the certain result is there will be huge numbers of very sick people requiring treatment by health and care workers.

We already know that people who come into contact with a very heavy viral load are much more likely to die and this puts many health and care workers at risk.

I’m personally not willing to sacrifice health and care workers who by virtue of their jobs have to take a risk the wider public would not themselves be willing to take.

And meanwhile Facebook, Twitter, snapchat and instagram all continue to monetise these conspiracy theorists / cretins – with nation state governments completely unable to respond…

2nd hand Nest cam or similar off eBay – no need to sign up to the monthly plan if you don’t need recording.

The Mercedes F1 device received regulatory approval today with first deliveries scheduled next week.

Here’s a piece from the German press on one of their ventilator manufacturers – Germany ordered “early” but even so there still can’t get enough of them.

https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-ventilator-manufacturer-absolutely-mission-impossible-a-549d1e18-8c21-45f1-846f-cf5ca254b008

A spokesman for the world’s largest producer of ventilators was quoted yesterday as saying they had already doubled production but the order backlog was 10 x their production capacity – with lead times of 4-6 months.

We can all argue about whether Dyson etc is a good thing but the reality is there are no ventilators in production now available for sale and supply to markets in the next couple of weeks.

So we can wait and watch people die, or try a dual strategy which is what the government has done – production at the only U.K. based ventilator manufacturer has already been increased by 50% but they typically only make 2 a day.

There are probably quite a few issues with licensing an existing design:

1. Willingness of IP rights holders to do so and protracted negotiations periods that could end in failure to agree
2. Availability of the required parts in local supply chains
3. Inability to swap parts to overcome
Supply chain issues (ref to likely terms imposed by IP rights holder)
4. Complexity of assembly and the need for specialist equipment.

From what’s been written, it seems the Gtech and Dyson efforts have sought to use readily available parts that can be assembled on simple production lines.

It’s pretty disappointing to see the vitriol on this thread – not least when other countries are taking the same approach (most recently Spain) and some successes have already been achieved with 3D printing e.g. connectors for Decathlon Dive masks to connect to existing hospital oxygen supplies.

The latter has already saved lives but I’m sure would nonetheless receive the same cynicism and conspiracy theory treatment from some of the armchair experts on here.

Ineos indeed do produce “a mass of disposable plastic”.

Of exactly the same type used to make disposable PPE e.g. aprons, eye protection, components for medical devices etc etc.

So should we boycott Ineos and tell care workers it’s tough luck? What this crisis clearly shows is that the policy of hollowing out domestic production in favour of supply chains that source goods from other countries is absolutely disastrous.

“If the government insists on being an outlier in response to this”

The thing is we’re assuming the action taken in China etc has actually worked – it’s too early to tell. We’ll only really know in 12 months time – enough time to determine if the action resulted in a subsequent much larger infection a few months down the line or mutations into milder (or more aggressive) strains.

The problem with China is that we can’t trust their data. They originally delayed telling the WHO of the problem and covered up Covid by introducing new filters on social media e.g. WeChat, back in December. This prevented people from telling each other they were sick – many Chinese are also reluctant to talk about it by phone because calls are routinely monitored. In this critical period, no travel restrictions were introduced with the result that travellers from Wuhan infected many others.

Given the scale of China’s initial subterfuge it’s quite plausible that today’s “low” figures are actually the tip of an iceberg and that their containment approach has actually failed.

“ No long distance truckers stopping off at the truck stop for a burger. No flights in or out. Given that we import our food, this is most concerning. ”

This is complete scare mongering.

Other European countries that are in “lockdown” are still allowing road hauliers to move across borders and there’s nothing to suggest the U.K. will be any different. If Eurostar passenger services run less frequently there will
be more capacity for freight movements using the channel tunnel.

“ What has happened here is that Johnson and Cummings were given “options” by Vallance and Whitty and they chose the riskiest response with the least amount of damage to the economy. ”

I’d put good money on this claim being completely fabricated unless the original poster can actually provide any first hand evidence for this ludicrous assertion.

A nationwide reduction in speed limits would also help to reduce the number of accidents and the severity of them when they do occur. Something like 30
> 20, 60 > 40 and 70 > 50 might work.

“You can see the fear in Chris Witty’s face. He knows whats coming.”

What we’re actually seeing is a guy who along with Patrick Vallance and their team have been working crazy hours since January to build the models and analytics required to make informed decisions. This is familiar ground to Whitty – he is one of the main reasons that Ebola was stopped in its tracks in 2009:

https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/ebola-emergence-epidemic-and-the-global-response

Whitty is quite literally one of the best epidemiologists in the world and the government is doing what they should be doing – listening to the experts who’ve spent their whole careers studying this sort of stuff – rather than making policy decisions that satisfy the siren cries of shouty people on the internet / Daily Mail.

There’s a good video in which Patrick Vallance explains the approach being recommended by the scientific advisers to the government here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51857856

There’s already a lot of pretty lame political point scoring on this thread but the approach the government are taking seems to be evidenced based and credible.

Just because other countries are isolating now doesn’t mean they will effectively control this disease over the long term.

+1 for the Jaybird Tarah Pros – I get a good 16 hours music / talk time out of them on a single charge. The earbuds need cleaning every month or so and stay put in between.

+1 for makita. Their 18v stuff is absolutely bombproof. Worth keeping an eye on amazon as they quite regularly have the bare kits on offer.

Bonuses etc are counted as corporate benefits and don’t fall under the AWR.

The scrotes from Brentford have been visiting twickers and surrounding areas for a while now.

Unfortunately it’s endemic – we’ve had a sustained spate of kids robbing younger kids at knifepoint in the local shopping centre… making them unlock their phones and disable “find my phone”.

They’ve also been frog marching the victims to the cash points, entering the PIN numbers and then using the threat of knowing the family photos and contact details to say “if you cancel your PIN number we will stab your brother / sister / mum etc etc. Also quite a lot of completely unnecessary violence after the victims have handed over their phones, cash etc.

It must be very hard for parents to know what to do for the best.

Why not mount the TV on the ceiling and run the cables through the loft? Nice and neat and easy to watch in bed…

For a proper job, cut a hole in the ceiling – pass the Tv through and hang it on wires attached to the rafters. Then plasterboard around the back of the TV and paint it all in so it looks nice.

Dance with China, Dance with the Devil.

This stuff is a real problem for manufacturers and consumers. To the unwitting consumer, they are buying the “real” thing at a discount. To manufacturers, Chinese knock offs can damage their brands (when things fail) or worse still get blended into legitimate supply chains thus creating liability issues that need to be worked through with costly lawyers and IP investigation teams.

Personally I’d be happy if we didn’t trade with China until they started playing by the same rules as everyone else. The planet would probably benefit from that as well.

Is the idea any more stupid than the bridge connecting Sweden with Denmark?

I was thinking on my ride to work this morning that a semi—submerged tunnel might work better – basically build a tube in sections that floats 100m below the surface – well away from passing ships etc but without the challenge of building 1000ft? bridge piers. As long as the design has the right natural buoyancy the main engineering challenge would be how to anchor the tube to the seabed enough to stop tidal movement.

If this would work all of the sections could be pre-fabbed, floated to site and then partially submerged – a bit like with the recent Tyne tunnel but not resting on the seabed.

How many minutes into the flight do we have to watch until the software overrules the pilot and pitches the plane into the ground?

This thread won’t end well.

No TJ – because London is a mega city and drives a significant contribution to GDP.

Much of the talent / business that is located there simply wouldn’t work elsewhere in the U.K. even if the infrastructure was there – they would up sticks and work in other global mega cities.

For that reason investment in London transport is marginally higher in real terms – although Scotland and Northern Ireland continue to receive much higher public spending per capita overall.

£100B is chump change. It will have a 100-150 year service life and be paid for over 15 years – during which inflation will erode the “real” contract costs.

It works out around £2m a year per mile (354 miles) over a 150 year service life – and that’s without discounting for time value of money.

Projects of HS2’s scale always cost loads but are comparable to the investment in the late 1800s for the original railways. Most of the north / south rail capacity has now been absorbed so we have to do something to create future capacity, not least because the population is growing rapidly.

What’s disappointing is that the ambition in the Hs2 vision isn’t matched in an equally ambitious vision for modal shift in towns in cities – getting most single passenger car journeys to switch to small personal electric vehicles / speed pedelecs.

One more point of comparison – the latest estimate of the compensation costs to cover NHS clinical negligence is £83B (as reported in the news earlier in the week). For some reason that has received little to no attention.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51180944

One other issue is that even on current Sonos products IPv6 isn’t fully supported – which I only managed to pinpoint after a month of cursing at the system intermittently not working and having to be reset each time.

As above the BT Mesh system is great – the “mini” 3 pack is about £100.

I helped to move a wren kitchen and it was back breaking – the cabinets are markedly more solid / heavier than other ones I’ve seen.

If I was buying a kitchen I’d probably go for Wren.

Has he styled himself on Lee Nelson?

https://images.app.goo.gl/LAQNDLxq8J5vUfgA7

Slight thread hijack, how much do people spend on household food a week I.e. just stuff bought to prepare meals rather than ready meals and takeaways etc?

You can either give them the day off they asked for, or refuse in which case you’re likely to revive a 1-2 day sickness absence later in the year as payback.

Personally I’d give them them the day off and avoid creating a problem for later.

Check whether they are as “green” as they claim – a lot of them (including most of those mentioned above) are buying REGO certificates for a few quid so they can claim their source is renewables when in fact it’s not.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/renewable-energy-suppliers-green-electricity-which-research-a9123566.html