If we choose to learn anything from Thatcher, it’s that key public utilities need to remain in public hands. In Scotland we suffer from most of the same sectoral problems as the rest of the UK, but at least our water utility is publicly owned. And is all the better for it.

Of course you could also have a go at the fundamentals of competence, process and delivery across a wide range of Council services. And then there’s the corruption, lying and malicious behaviour…

I’m looking at the ongoing collapse of Tesla sales in key markets, occasioned as they are by a lethal combo of distaste for Musk, aging and overpriced products and competition from the Chinese brands. They’re in deep trouble.

Musk exiting Tesla would be the best thing that could happen to the company. All these idiots were doing was attempting to maintain its ridiculous valuation a little longer - Tesla will now crash & burn once the cry of “the Emperor has no clothes!” goes up. Musk will never get his payout

I’d be interested to know how much of the improved outcome is attributable to simply using Wikipedia as a constrained source vs the use of SYNTH

That rather reads like something from a parallel universe. If you refer to his opposition to Corbyn, then it’s much to his credit that he do so

All it demonstrates is the collective and collusive delusion of the Tesla board and majority shareholders. They’re so desperate to carrying on riding the tiger of hype that they’ve set a trajectory for Tesla’s self-destruction. So it will never pay out and is a truly self-defeating prophecy.

I’m not often lost for words, even in the face of the egregious dumbing down of the very principles by which institutions (should) operate. But this…

So Voldemort did have a brother

‘Centrism’ is an entirely relative term. From a European perspective, Mamdani is a perfectly normal centre-left social democrat. He should get on well with Sadiq Khan, who has been setting a good example in London.

And Apple’s support have been worse than useless - I’ve been going around in endless circles with them for the last 24 hours. And they just hung up on me when I asked to be put through to the Edinburgh Apple Store.

The Law of Unintended Consequences has entered the chat…

Built into a backpack? Just be careful not to cross the beams, unless you’re trying to banish a demon lord from another dimension

Well, d’uh… GIGO always applies

Wow.

…there’s in fact not even an “England English” - there’s a massive disparity in accent AND language use even between neighbouring areas. And then there’s Scots as an dialect.

Yes I am. I’d regard that as an axiom, in any scenario where dogma or magical thinking replace evidence based decision making. That’s not to say that the balance of evidence won’t drive a radical solution, but I wouldn’t regard that as a extreme left/right position

What on earth makes you think I'm a centrist? I never implied that, but merely made the observation that extremists of all ilks rely on delusion-fuelling dogma. That's not the same as problems to which the analytic solution is radical but evidence-based. Try getting off your assumptive hobby horse…