marjolica

@marjolica@social.linux.pizza

Retired Operational Researcher/Statistician/Economist.
Worked in Energy Industries/University/Civil Service. Most recently producing UK Energy & Emissions Projections.
GNU/Linux user since 1993 (kernel 0.99).
Now on Devuan Daedalus/Cinnamon (kernel 6.1).
Rower, cyclist, dingy sailor, walker, skier.
Socialist, bi, poly, she/her.
Fully paid up member of the Guardian reading, tofu eating Wokerati.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

HelenG, to random
@HelenG@mastodon.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    marjolica,

    @HelenG @fkamiah17 you are probably aware of these but posting in case you, and anyone affected, aren't: lots do miss out and don't claim PC.

    1. you're basic state pension goes up 1% for each 9 weeks that you defer taking it. So for you worth +8.7% so far.
    2. you can get Pension Credit top up to £201 (single) if all your pensions and an imputed income from your Saving over £10k, together come to less.
    selea, to random

    I wish you all a nice weekend :)

    marjolica,

    @selea and you too.
    Big thanks as I see we have the 4.2.5 fix so we can all sleep well.

    mythologyandhistory, to food
    @mythologyandhistory@mas.to avatar

    An obsession of mine is researching how countries handle threats of & insecurity.

    for example, has secret locations in which it stores legumes, grains & milk powder.

    has 6 mths of grain & fuel & a min. of 3 months of medicine.

    In terms of water security, 9 countries in the will have extreme lvls of water stress by 2040.
    But this will also be dire for , & .

    What do other countries do? Educate me! :)

    marjolica,

    @mythologyandhistory well in England we privatised our Water Companies 35 years ago and since then we haven't built a new reservoir. The companies have also been glacially slow in fixing leaks in the distribution system. So our resilience is pretty crap, but against that the companies have made a lot of money.

    petergleick, to climate
    @petergleick@fediscience.org avatar

    Interesting. The more you know about change the less anxious you are, because you also know about the options for tackling it. Educating the public works.

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-023-03518-z

    marjolica,

    @petergleick a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
    I think we, collectively, are still far too complacent about how quickly conditions for civilisation as we know it are deteriorating and how little we are actually doing to avert further degradation: buying electric cars and giving up plastic straws are not the answer.

    jackofalltrades, to random
    @jackofalltrades@mas.to avatar

    Behold, the ultimate list!

    In alphabetical order, you're missing out if you're not following all of them.

    @504DR
    @breadandcircuses
    @CiaraNi
    @dennyhenke
    @FantasticalEconomics
    @gerrymcgovern
    @HeavenlyPossum
    @hembrow
    @jbzfn
    @justafrog
    @largess
    @marjolica
    @OutOnTheMoors
    @pvonhellermannn
    @RD4Anarchy
    @RichardAshwell
    @Ruth_Mottram
    @terrygrundy
    @urlyman

    marjolica,

    @FantasticalEconomics @jackofalltrades @justafrog I follow @gwagner and @ChrisMayLA6
    Not all economists are evil or blinkered, though I don't seem to encounter the evil ones in my little bubble in the .

    I have an economics degree though I've always practised as an Operational Researcher. But I used econometrics when I was at the (UK) DTI and then DECC, all pre 2015, and worked closely with lots of government and academic economists.

    marjolica,

    @jackofalltrades @FantasticalEconomics @justafrog @ChrisMayLA6 in my view the real baddies are

    a) those macroeconomists feeding the Treasury, BoE, MSM and the leaders of the Tory and Labour Party delusions about how inflation works and how the National Debt is a hard constraint.

    @RichardJMurphy is quite good on this.

    b) Those, starting with Nordhaus, that have parametrised economic models that then wildly underestimate the effect of global warming on economies.

    https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/economic-models-buckle-under-strain-climate-reality-2023-11-22/

    jwildeboer, (edited ) to nuclear
    @jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net avatar

    OH: "Of course you cannot simply decide to switch everything to without really thinking it through. That would be like building power plants everywhere without a clear and agreed plan on what to do with the radioactive waste."

    marjolica,

    @jwildeboer of course you can. We've already done this with nuclear for the last 75 years.

    RichardJMurphy, to random
    @RichardJMurphy@mas.to avatar

    If the Office for Budget Responsibility does not disclose that its forecasts are total nonsense when it knows that they are what is the point of it? https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2024/01/24/if-the-office-for-budget-responsibility-does-not-disclose-that-its-forecasts-are-total-nonsense-when-it-knows-that-they-are-what-is-the-point-of-it/ The OBR knew that the data supplied to it by the government to prepare forecasts last November was total nonsense - but did not say so at the time. Their credibility has been shattered by that admission. And so too has their independence been totally compromised. What a shambles.

    marjolica,

    @RichardJMurphy just as with how we are going to meet Carbon Budgets the government need to be forced to show how, in detail, they (and the NHS and LAs) are going to achieve the spending cuts they preemptively assume can be achieved to 'balance the books' and also deliver tax cuts. And what those cuts mean for us as citizens. If they don't then the OBR should refuse to audit their hallucinations.

    Wes Streeting, with his imagined NHS reforms) also seems to have been eating the same mushrooms.

    cstross, to random
    @cstross@wandering.shop avatar

    Trolley problem solution:

    I think we should find out who keeps tying victims to the tracks, and next time they try it, we should free the victims and tie them up in their place. It's only fair!

    SPOILER: the serial killer will probably turn out to be an SUV salesman, trying to discredit safe, cheap public transport.

    marjolica,

    @sideshow_jim @cstross don't even speculate about pushing someone else.
    How do you know that if YOU jump off the bridge that your bulk won't stop the tram?
    No time to ponder.
    What's holding you back?

    urlyman, to random
    @urlyman@mastodon.social avatar

    The decision by Mastodon to not have the equivalent of quote tweets is a good one.

    It frustrated me when I committed to being here, because I was a Twitter addict.

    But it’s the right decision 🙏

    marjolica,

    @anderspuck @urlyman I was never on X/itter so never saw these QTs or their effect: however spamming the OP all the time does seem a bad idea. However on Mastodon you can click on a post to see its original thread in full. I do this all the time. Would the ability, that you could enable as a user, to simply show the direct post replied to in a second window above the reply not answer most real needs: myself, I do like to have some context to a reply I'm reading without opening a thread in full.

    HelenG, to random
    @HelenG@mastodon.social avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    marjolica,

    @JackTheCat @HelenG butter is one of the few food items that has fallen in price in the last year. That may be because we are now all buying more own brand cheapy butter rather than Lurpack.

    From the article :

    Food

    Olive oil 45.8%
    Sugar 21.3%
    Sauces and condiments 18.4%
    Pork 13.6%
    Vegetables 10.1%
    Fruit 7.1%
    Eggs 6.8%
    Pasta products and couscous 6.6%
    Ready-made meals 6%
    Cheese and curd 5.1%
    Fish 2.4%
    Bread 2.2%
    Jams, marmalades and honey -0.9%
    Low-fat milk -6.1%
    Butter -8.4%
    Whole milk -11%

    glynmoody, to solar
    @glynmoody@mastodon.social avatar

    California Has Dealt a Blow to Energy, Some Businesses Say - https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/14/business/energy-environment/california-rooftop-solar.html "Some companies are leaving the state or reducing their presence there after California greatly reduced incentives for homeowners to install rooftop panels."

    marjolica,

    @glynmoody surely we are at a point where the cost of panels has fallen so much and the alternative costs of energy have risen that they pay for themselves without subsidy?

    The role for subsidy should now be on heat pumps, whee there are economies of scale that still need to be realised.

    This seems to be the case in the UK.

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/11/installation-of-rooftop-solar-panels-uk-12-year-high-2023-record-number-of-heat-pumps

    ChrisMayLA6, to random
    @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

    If are a key aspect of the (they are!), nevertheless the problem is concentrated on England & Wales 's coastline(s).

    As Councils seek more powers to get empty & under-used times back into use, this aspect of the crisis at least seems to be pretty geographically concentrated, suggesting perhaps a more targeted policy around councils with large 'visitor economy' exposure?

    However, as this also suggests problems with empty homes elsewhere are differently caused!

    marjolica,

    @ChrisMayLA6 we certainly have issues with a lack of homes for working people down here in Devon.
    Note that much of our housing stock is lost to holiday homes to let (Airbnb, etc) as well as second homes.
    Also, of course, retirees from richer areas buying up properties - FWIW this includes me.

    There are attempts to limit the problem, in some of the worst affected areas, by restricting ownership of (just) new housing to local people and by introducing council tax supplements on second homes.

    ChrisMayLA6, to France
    @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

    Meanwhile in an interesting spat in :

    French supermarket giant Carrefour has decided to stop selling products because of unacceptable price rises on their range(s).

    It will be interesting to see how this plays out... how will customers react to a well-known brand not being available & which side will cave first?

    More interestingly, might any lessons be drawn about how UK might use (or perhaps have been using) their oligopolistic position on pricing?

    marjolica,

    @ChrisMayLA6 taking brands off the shelves is not new.
    See Tesco vs Heinz as reported resolved in this article.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62076208

    Also note the links to previous reports of suppliers being temporarily frozen out at the bottom.

    glynmoody, to random
    @glynmoody@mastodon.social avatar

    Schools in England face years of chaos as government stalls on Raac concrete repairs - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/23/raac-concrete-schools-england-repairs-latest-figures of course, another problem for Labour to fix...

    marjolica,

    @glynmoody unfortunately the Labour Party (well Starmer and Reeves, at least) seems determined to convince itself that we, as a nation, can't afford to fix schools and hospitals' unsafe roofs, or anything else, for that matter.

    ChrisMayLA6, to random
    @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

    Once again I see people in the media (the commentariat) are scrambling to find some good news in the current data, and as so often the fallback position is 'we're not doing so badly, we're still the sixth richest country in the world'....

    so at the risk of repeating myself.

    This is nonsense: at the very least look at the GDP per capita data which 'corrects' for population size. Here the UK is around the mid 20s in ranking, which goes some way to expelling our overall economic plight!

    marjolica,

    @JugglingWithEggs @ChrisMayLA6 I'm not sure that this graph is correct - it differs considerably from the World Bank's Wealth Gini Coefficient stats as reported here:
    https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/wealth-inequality-by-country

    Brazil 52.9 (highest)
    USA 39.7
    Swiss 33.1
    UK 32.6
    Canada 32.5
    Germany 31.7
    Ireland 29.2
    Sweden 28.9
    Norway 27.2
    Belgium 26.0
    Slovakia 23.2 (lowest)

    Showing Sweden as the most unequal for wealth is surely wrong.

    And the UK is towards the top end for 'advanced' economies.

    CatherineFlick, to random
    @CatherineFlick@mastodon.me.uk avatar

    Turns out our solar together (booooo) engineer was telling us a bunch of porky pies when he told me that we could run the house off the battery in the case of a power outage! Grrr!

    marjolica,

    @CatherineFlick can you tell is it the lack of grid synchronisation signal or a flat battery or something else?
    My solar output is certainly not that high this time of year: we have 16 panels and a 3.7 KW inverter but we only generate an average of 5 KWh/day in December against 17 KWh/day in June.
    Today we have not generated more than we used in any 1 hour period, so far.

    marjolica,

    @CatherineFlick then maybe it does need a synchronisation signal from the grid. Admittedly off-grid inverters usually work OK on boats and caravans.

    marjolica,

    @CatherineFlick another thought, could there be a short on the downed mains power line?
    Have you tried isolating it?

    HelenG, to random
    @HelenG@mastodon.social avatar

    deleted_by_author

    •
    marjolica,

    @HelenG my reading of the reports I saw were that while the perpetrators were casually transphobic the reason it was her, rather than the other potential victims they talked about, who was kilked were more to do with her being available at the wrong time and her too trusting nature.

    glynmoody, to random
    @glynmoody@mastodon.social avatar

    Ban use of bee-killing pesticide in UK, business chiefs tell government - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/dec/22/ban-use-bee-killing-pesticide-uk-business-government " ‘We need to listen to the scientists. Excessive pesticide use is killing our bees,’ say company heads in letter to minister" well done business, boo government

    marjolica,

    @glynmoody one strand of business at least, unfortunately DEFRA is far too beholden to the sugar beet industry.

    nokyan, to random

    This instance has completely blocked Threads? :/

    marjolica,

    @thomy2000 @nokyan well we did have a vote on it: and a majority of those who voted decided we'd rather not federate, for now anyway, and @selea has honoured that decision.

    glynmoody, to Taiwan
    @glynmoody@mastodon.social avatar

    president says has too many problems to invade - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/30/taiwan-president-tsai-ing-wen-china-problems-invade-xi-jinping this is precisely why china might invade - to distract its people from the problems...

    marjolica,

    @glynmoody too many problems? so had the Russians before they invaded Ukraine.

    ChrisMayLA6, to lancaster
    @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

    Quite apart from concerns about the costing & planning for 's rail proposals (intended to replace aspects of ), for those of us living in & the surrounding areas, once again the large urban area of Lancaster-Morecambe is right in the middle of a blank area....

    There's a strange blindness about Lancaster; we have a top 10 University, a major new visitor economy development (Eden North) & a large population yet somehow are always missing from plans!

    marjolica,

    @JetlagJen @ChrisMayLA6 the main 'attraction' for Stranraer will be the ferry at Cairnryan. At present this is only connected to Ayr by bus. Having driven Carlisle to Stranraer it's a long way (~100 miles) so moving freight onto rail would make sense.

    The old 'port road' line (lost to Beeching) used to run through Castle Douglas and Dumfries to Gretna and Carlisle where it joined the main west coast line to Glasgow. So I would have expected them to name Carlisle and Cairnryan as the termini.

    marjolica,

    @JetlagJen @ChrisMayLA6 correction - what they seem to be proposing is an upgrade to the A75 road link from Gretna to Stranraer.
    So save money on rail (HS2) and spend it on roads instead.
    This is the only Scottish element of the 'what to do with the scrapping the HS2 northern leg savings' proposals.

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