SME industrial production. Business electricity is/can be significantly more expensive than domestic electricity prices. It's a significant variable cost.
Consider a small CNC routing enterprise running 4 machines. Each machine averages 25kW, with extraction, air supply etc contributing another 50kw. Heating the space in winter (CNC routers lock out if the ambient temperature drops below 18c) is incredibly inefficient, because when the extractors are running you're emptying the workshop of air (that you paid to heat) multiple times an hour.
Pre-covid the hourly electricity run rate would be in the region of £45/hr (0.27p / kWh)
At the worst of the energy price crises, the run rate was > £180/hr (I know of one shop that was paying 111p/kWh for a period).
Now we're paying 0.38p / kWh or £70/hr. That's a baseline increase of >£10k a year...
SME workshops have died because their pricing model just couldn't flex to accommodate that.
STABLE energy pricing is equally important as CHEAP energy pricing.
While my opinion is nothing more than armchair general - I agree. The overwhelming evidence supports this, even before the incredible counter offensive.
Even prior to the arrival of HIMARS, the decimation of Russian armour was astounding. And that was with weapons NATO infantry teams, the least specialist, most numerous bread and butter soldier force, are all trained on and supplied with.
As it stands; the Ukranians are better fed, equipped, supplied, intelligenced (!), and have the ability to rotate in and out of theatre to keep up momentum. As the offensive continues, their armaments increase in both quantity (captured russian equipment) and efficacy (NATO finally testing their weapons against that which they've theorised about fighting for the past 50 years). With every passing month, cadres of soldiers pass out from NATO training in the UK and throughout the EU.
Prediction - with that in mind - the Russians won't wait 2-3 months to deploy conscripts. They'll start loading trains this week.
It's going to be horrific. The metaphor of Russian gloves coming off will prove to be nothing but allowing them to shove greater quantities of meat into the grinder.
I presume he is thinking on the basis of Russia deploying another 200,000 troops and the effect that may have on undoing the gains of late (whether it will or not is another matter...).
Extending that thought process, if a partial mobilisation realises 200,000 troops to fight, then the next logical step after that fails is a full mobilisation with pundits suggesting up to 1,000,000 "soldiers".
There is some merit in thinking that the sheer size of Russia means they can just keep churning out men for a zerg rush at a rate exceeding that which Ukraine can deal with, at a cost:benefit ratio acceptable for Russia but crushing for Ukraine.
Is it, though? Because operations I've been to use every last available ounce of the tree. Trunk and limbs are sawn, small limbs, branches, bark, and offcuts are ground for biomass heating. Yes, it's burnt, but releasing no more carbon than it captured in its lifecycle and to provide a tangible end result that would otherwise be achieved with fossil fuels.
Root stumps rot, yes, but providing a breeding ground for insects and hence birds and small mammals and hence predators. They also fix soil beneficial bacteria and fungi, and having spent all their energy breaking up the soil and then breaking down they prepare the best soil bed for the new tree to take its place and sequester more carbon.
It's not the perfect process, by any means, but wood as a building material is infinitely more sustainable than concrete, gypsum and stone.
Some trees can grow over a century. Some can't. Some trees growth top out by 50 years and then grow incredibly slowly (sequestering carbon at a much slower rate). Some grow for 300 years and sequester carbon at a constant rate. Which is why it's called woodland _management_.
"Having survived multiple forest fires" says a lot to me. Surviving a forest fire still invokes a huge release of otherwise captured carbon for no gain. Harvesting trees for timber means the bulk of the tree sequesters carbon into the structure, and the waste byproduct can be utilised to provide energy for the process.
With the correct tooling and processes, it's as close to carbon neutral as you can get.
Trees only have a finite lifespan. Even "wild" forests reach end of life stage and that's when responsible logging and forestry management can promote healthier forests.
Using those trees sequesters the captured carbon into structures. Leaving them to stand and die in the forest releases that captured carbon.
In the last two years I've been committing just 16-24 hours/week of actual sit-down-at-desk work to the projects/contracts I've worked on. Despite not working 40 hours, I hit all my deliverables and leave my clients very happy. No secret sauce - I just focus on getting deliverables done and religiously avoid "stuff-and-fluff".
That to say; recruiters, team leads et al have little idea of how workload converts to time. If you're measuring hours you've already lost. The only thing that matters is output value.
> Michael Scott: Jim Halpert: Not a hard worker. I can spend all day on a project, and he will finish the same project in a half an hour.
There isn't sufficient margin in drink to float a pub. The margin is in food (and to an extent, dispensed soft drinks).
Because priority becomes food over drink, people are willing (and able) to drive further for a better pub. Competition increases and you don't need a 'local' for every village or part of town anymore. Less pubs can serve more people because rather than regulars "propping up the bar" 3-5 nights a week for an extended session, you get restaurant-esque table turnover.
This is desirable for landlords - they often live above their pubs - profit from food service means you can shut earlier, you don't have regular fights or trouble from drunk customers and general toil is lower.
But some publicans just won't (or can't) adapt. They won't or can't invest in kitchen and chef. They can't or won't learn how to market and attract new, younger customers. Inflation, energy pricing, COVID shutdowns et al have all just accelerated the demise of the "pub pub".
The old "pub pub" crowd are now well served by the Wetherspoons, who have the advantage of controlling their margins in ways Brewery landlords can't compete with (mass purchasing, pre-prepared food, all their pubs are "new" buildings that don't have the insane maintenance and insurance overheads of a 200+ year old pub building etcetc).
We may be at a record low, but I suspect we'll be setting new lows for some years to come yet.
src: family of publicans from 193Xs ~> 200X. Tried to buy a pub at the 'end' of COVID restrictions.
High powered vehicles don't have a tendency to cause anything.
Driver input causes sudden acceleration. Having access to more power is not an inherently dangerous thing. Poor driving ability is a dangerous thing - though I agree that more power can compound that danger.
I drive a 480bhp 1800kg car. It takes active involvement from me in multiple steps to "take off" or 'suddenly' accelerate, and when it does so, the whole car is configured to _increase_ its stability as its speed increases.
That said, if I were to aggressively accelerate when the road conditions are in excess of what the stability aids (and my fallible human skillset) can counter - which from experience is a high bar for modern DSC (oil, ice) - then I would crash and power would be a contributory factor. But from experience I can say that a small front wheel drive car will have 'let go' far sooner under those same conditions.
High-powered cars, by virtue of their expense, tend to have more comprehensive and capable driver assistance features both tech and mech (you're not going to find a limited slip differential on a budget super mini car)
Under-powered cars have trouble effectively matching carriageway and motorway speed in the short slip roads that are common in the UK. A 1 litre, >80bhp car is fine for city/town and village driving. It is not an appropriate vehicle for motorway or NSL carriageway driving. Anything that has no ability to out-accelerate a HGV maintaining cruise speed to join a motorway has no business being on the motorway.
> 4. Scaffolding being put up or taken down. Incredibly noisy, actually has to be done fairly regularly, many companies illegally do this at the weekend in the early morning as it's a part time job for them
It's incredibly unlikely that a scaffolder operating in the city, during the weekend, is a part-timer. What you are seeing is the side effect of too much work, too little time, and the natural progression of staging.
Work on one "lift" (one floor height) of scaffolding progresses during the week. The "scaffs" come in on Saturday to raise to the next lift, ready for work to resume on Monday. Your crews are out doing smaller jobs during the week but all come in for a shift on Saturday to knock out a lift on a big site together.
And this isn't illegal. The local authority is responsible for setting guidelines, and those guidelines are used to inform enforcement notices that can prohibit a site's activities between hours _retrospectively if they're found to be excessive_. Excessive is a high bar for an enforcement agent standing 100ft below a scaffolder with a decibel meter trying to hear his impact gun over the drum of a bus rolling past.
The core guidelines are unlimited noisy work 8am to 1pm on Saturday. Work to be "avoided" on Sunday.
>It was also used to shut down businesses, anyone could say they had covid, report it on the NHS phone app and then that would trigger all those people in the vicinity to have to isolate
I had significant misgivings about the app and it's efficacy. It is those misgivings that mean I don't believe this is an accurate representation.
Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, a positive case report on the app had to be backed by a PCR result, which required a code provided on a positive PCR test. A bad actor as you describe would have only one shot at a malicious shut down (and would actually need to be Covid+ to do it).
Secondly, the exposure limit was... generous. Proximity and duration had to be sufficient to form a close contact that would then be advised to self isolate and seek a test. People walking past a bad actor loitering outside a shopping centre would not meet this criteria. The shop keeper would...
...but shop keepers, retail staff et al by and large did not have the app. Employers were actively preventing their employees from downloading the application to prevent having to close for staff shortages while they were advised to isolate.
Ignoring all of this, you get into the crux of the app with the "check ins". All venues were meant to enforce the "check in" procedure - in actuality, it was pretty much only restaurants that did so. Even if you "checked in" to a venue, _you had no ability to check out_ so that if a positive case was reported on the same day you happened to be at a venue, even hours apart, you would be flagged. This meant that every positive venue ping had to be reviewed by a person, who would be tasked with reviewing which of the contacts in the venue should be contact traced. The criteria for doing so was opaque - and without the knowledge of what time people left vs arrived - and the actual device:device exposure being invisible to the contract tracer - we can only surmise that an element of inference and good old fashioned guess work was at play. And as was publicised at the time - the contract tracers found themselves with very little work to do.
>Should I also mention the Prime Minister was telling everyone to get onto Zoom for their meetings and then later on a zero click zero day exploit in Zoom surface which conveniently had given GCHQ enough time to hoover up data off plenty of systems. LOL
The Prime Minister has repeatedly demonstrated himself to be fundamentally incapable of understanding even the most basic aspects of his job, let alone technology. Hanlon's Razor comes to mind here.
anecdotally, I was approached for a lead role with Lego pre-pandemic.
Very high expectations for role/responsibilities and technical prowess. Very low remuneration on offer. And that was before rates and salaries shot through the roof post-pandemic.
Unless that's changed, and given the seeming lack of remote roles, I will be shocked if they meet this goal without most all new hires being junior outsourced/offshore resource.
The scam is misrepresentation. There's an almost intangible line between "fake it til you make it" and "fraud". There's pushing that line, and there's jumping over it.
- Misrepresented previous client list
- Misrepresented project experience
- Misrepresented personal brand (fake LinkedIn reviews)
- Misrepresented other brands (faking reviews from fake Nike employees)
- Misrepresented company status (faked employees)
- Misrepresented company director status (fake GQ adverts, fake instagram followers)
The scam is that an individual carefully constructed a fake reality to sell a "job" to a bunch of individuals under false pretences. This wasn't an honest mistake. It was an orchestrated and premeditated punt at using a group of individuals labour at zero cost to land a big client for significant financial reward for the perpetrator.
> A scam is something which is a deception or a lie, not terms to which you openly agree to.
"Come join our new agency. We have no client list, or leads, and no pedigree with which to land a big client, and I will be unable to pay you until we land our first client"
vs
"I am a highly successful creative director with a swathe of personal and professional connections to high value businesses. I am offering a commission only role but given <all of the misrepresentation> we will definitely land 7 figure contracts! You don't have to take my word for it, look at all the <carefully crafted misrepresentation>"
Shameful to be insinuating this is an honest business practice, IMO
how do you expect the producers of the content you consume to continue putting out the content you want to consume if they're unable to monetise that content?
Consider a small CNC routing enterprise running 4 machines. Each machine averages 25kW, with extraction, air supply etc contributing another 50kw. Heating the space in winter (CNC routers lock out if the ambient temperature drops below 18c) is incredibly inefficient, because when the extractors are running you're emptying the workshop of air (that you paid to heat) multiple times an hour.
Pre-covid the hourly electricity run rate would be in the region of £45/hr (0.27p / kWh)
At the worst of the energy price crises, the run rate was > £180/hr (I know of one shop that was paying 111p/kWh for a period).
Now we're paying 0.38p / kWh or £70/hr. That's a baseline increase of >£10k a year...
SME workshops have died because their pricing model just couldn't flex to accommodate that.
STABLE energy pricing is equally important as CHEAP energy pricing.