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.

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.

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.

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.

Yep. It’s to distinguish it from other forms of homelessness, such as “sofa surfing” (where someone moves from one friend or family member to another for short periods without having a fixed address of their own), people temporarily living in homeless shelters/boarding houses, people living in places which aren’t really accommodation (such as their place of work), and “statutory homelessness” (a broader legal definition which includes a few things which might not seem like homelessness, such as people who are at serious risk of violence in their homes).

A lot of quality small local newspapers doing an amazing job are financially struggling. It’s very sad.

Sadly not as many as you’d think. The overwhelming majority of local newspapers were owned by a handful of national companies. The three biggest are Reach (owner of the Mirror and the Express, amongst others), Newsquest and National World, who between them own 70% of all local papers. Another 10% are owned by the next biggest company (Tindle News). Only at most 20% of local papers are owned by smaller companies, and most of those aren’t independent, they’re just smaller companies than the big 4.

Anyone lucky enough to still have a genuine independent local paper with at least passable quality should cherish the fuck out of it.

The headline could equally have been “Olympic athlete forced into prostitution to pay bills”, but that makes it sound like a serious institutional problem rather than a quirky and finally story.

Technically St Pancras is still state owned, but it’s on a long-term lease to a private consortium. Once the lease expires it’ll revert to direct state ownership too, it’s just that that’s got quite a long time horizon on it compared to the TOC franchises (still another 15 years away yet).

The company that owns the lines (Network Rail) is already nationalised. Its privatised predecessor (Railtrack) collapsed spectacularly all the way back in 2002.

All stations are owned and managed by either Network Rail or a train operating company, so this will bring all stations into nationalised ownership.

The only thing that isn’t being nationalised as part of this plan is the existing rolling stock, which is owned by yet another set of companies. But there’s no reason why new rolling stock won’t be under direct ownership, so that should sort itself out eventually.

Great game, and great franchise. I remember many a fond hour being horrifically stuck trying to figure out what to do next in Blood Omen. The sequel, Soul Reaver, was really my jam though.

Good advice in general; even contractual fuckery aside, you can’t guarantee a company will even still exist this time next year.

What OS are you going to use on your Smartphone if you remove software from Google and Apple?

People in the FOSS community constantly talk about the best ways to minimise use of Google, Apple and Microsoft products. That is an absolutely valid motivation for choosing to use one project over another.

If someone is willing to use the behaviour of a company or its owners as a factor when choosing a software stack, presumably it’s valid to apply the same sentiment to development teams of smaller projects too.

I’ve worked in jobs where my colleagues are good friends of mine, and other jobs where my colleagues are just colleagues and nothing more.

I’m lucky to currently work with people I genuinely get on very well with. I don’t go out for after work drinks with them (because I have small children and lots to do and no money), but I’d happily wile away an evening in the pub with them when it comes up.

I don’t know how they do it in the US, but in the UK most big companies outsource application checks to several big clearing houses. They handle the logistics of checking qualifications and obtaining references from previous employers, plus the optional enhanced checking that some companies need (such as DBS/criminal record checks).

In the UK there is a single official centralised system for checking degree qualifications which covers most major universities. It’s also only a 5 minute job to email a university registrar directly. I think most big companies would consider this a bare minimum task when recruiting for any role where a qualification is in any way important.

What’s the consequences of being caught lying on your resume? you lose your good job.

I used to work as a trade union officer representing people at disciplinaries. I’ve represented several people over the years who were sacked for lying on their CVs.

Not only did they lose their job, but they’ll get a “sacked for gross misconduct” reference from that employer making it much more difficult to get another job. Those in regulated roles also ended up with gross misconduct records with the regulator, making it essentially impossible to work in that field again.

So no, it’s not a risk free game.

It looks like the page for what will presumably be the paid-for game is here:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2870330/Grocery_Store_Tycoon/

Not released yet, though.

canonical is (or at least I think it is) South African

Canonical is British. Headquarters are in London.

The founder, Mark Shuttleworth, is a South African born British citizen, hence the African name for the distro. But it is and always has been British.

I’ve just discovered that the vets in my town are owned by Mars Inc.

You know, of “Mars Bars” fame.

Who knew?