If someone's house appreciates by £100k (say) over 10 years (say) without any work or improvement, they've effectively been given £10k/year just for living in it. Should that be taxed?

One other 7/7 thread today. Because I think how the bus network got running again is a real testament to some serious heroes that day:

The bus drivers and staff who got that network running again and got London home that night.

And TfL/the Mayor disobeyed the Security Services to make it happen /1

Dege's weather unit had been dropped on Svalbard in August 1944 and managed, in temperatures that reached 40 degrees below, to establish a weather station in Rijpfjord on the island.

From there, they broadcast weather reports back to Germany via a station in Tromsø /2

As anyone who’s spent any time at all in even a smallish organisation can tell you, much institutional memory ends up vested in about three people (let’s call them Olwen, Christine, and Elaine). They tend not to be at the top, and often, this is highly gendered.

STOP what you are doing, find some headphones or a secluded location, and watch this. I am crying with laughter and admiration at an idea seen through to its (nearly) bitter end. www.youtube.com/watch?v=cD3Q... Sound--as they say--on.

On the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, we thought we'd answer a question that's often asked,

"If they raised the Mary Rose, why not raise the Titanic?"

Allow our scaled diagram to explain...

✍️I visited British Steel last week - just as workers were discovering that the plant's Chinese owners were effectively planning to starve the blast furnaces to death.
It was a strange, unsettling experience. With deep ramifications. Some thoughts: edconway.substack.com/p/the-strang...

It turns out the Rule of Law needs lots of people of good faith to recognise/accept it, otherwise it doesn't work.

Five years ago today it seemed that the golden age of naval idiocy had disappeared forever.

That was before the Venezuelan patrol vessel Naiguatá managed to recapture some of this spirit by fighting - at least at that point - the dumbest action of the 21st century.

🌭🐆📈NEW POST ON FADFO 📈🐆🌭

Wait, what's FADFO? A sneaky attempt to coin a neologism & a response to the memes you see in the emojis: hotdog suit guy, leopards eating faces party, and the FAFO graph. What happens when you F#$% Around but you Don't Find Out? 1/n

benansell.substack.com/p/fadfo

The pandering to Trump must end — it only encourages his tyranny | ✍️ Matthew Syed

"Bullshitters. Who Are They and What Do
We Know about Their Lives?"

Just read this brilliant paper that used the PISA tests to look at who bullshits.

It asked 40,000 15yos to explain a fake maths term, eg Subjunctive scaling.

So guess what it found? 🧵

Today’s poem is called ‘Love Excels’.

Canal at Haigh

x.com/TheMERL/stat...

I wish the @themerl.bsky.social would post this sort of thing here