bens_dad

Petition

Protect the environment and stop corporate greenwashing! Don’t scrap the EU Green Claims Directive. Pass the law to:

Independently verify the environmental claims that companies make
Set clear rules to ensure companies make accurate claims
Prevent misleading product claims of climate neutrality and carbon offsetting – that companies make to avoid reducing their emissions
Include strict sanctions for non-compliance.

https://action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-07-antigreenwashing-directive-petition-EN?akid=s6344879..HTW89K

https://goodlawproject.org/ehrc-backs-down-on-single-sex-toilets/

Please sign https://action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-05-landmine-ban-petition-EN?action=sign&t=10&akid=10880%2E1749198%2EFivuNc

Antipersonnel landmines are banned by 165 countries—including all EU member states . These hidden killers cannot tell the difference between the footsteps of a soldier or a child. . They remain active for decades, buried in farmland, beneath roads, and around homes—killing long after the war is over.

Every year, more than 5000 people are killed or injured by landmines and unexploded war remnants. 85% are civilians. More than one-third are children. [1]

The Mine Ban Convention (the 1997 Landmine Convention) ban is one of the greatest humanitarian achievements of our time. Yet now, this legacy is under threat.

Poland, Finland, and Estonia are now discussing quitting the global landmine ban. Latvia and Lithuania have already voted to leave but could still reconsider their decision. If we stay silent, more may follow—and Europe could unravel 25 years of progress in protecting civilian life. More lives and limbs will be lost.

This June, world leaders meet in Geneva to discuss the future of the Mine Ban Convention. We still have time to stand up for the Convention and the lives and limbs at stake—if we act NOW.

EU countries must stand firm behind the landmine ban. If a handful are allowed to defect without consequences, the entire ban could start to crumble – not just in Europe but globally, endangering more innocent lives.

Add your name today - call on EU governments to say NO to landmines.

Please sign https://action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-05-landmine-ban-petition-EN?action=sign&t=10&akid=10880%2E1749198%2EFivuNc

References:

[1] https://www.the-monitor.org/reports/landmine-monitor-2024

[2] https://icblcmc.org/our-impact/nobel-peace-laureate-condemns-lithuanias-second-withdrawal-from-a-humanitarian-disarmament-treaty

From time to time I read about putting solar panels in space, where they will collect more energy, not use up the limited surface area of our planet, and (thanks to orbital geometry) power our lives at night as well as day.
[ If we had a fat enough wire going around the world, we could use terrestrial solar to power the night-time hemisphere too. ]

Sunlight on Earth is safeish.
In the UK six people a day die from skin cancer; as far as I can determine most of these are caused by exposure to sunlight.
If I went to the tropics and exposed my whole body to the sun I would get sunburnt and regret it within a day.

If an energy beam is weaker than sunlight, isn't it going to need as much receiving equipment as terrestrial solar ?
Put another way, if the beam is twice as energy-dense as the sun we are only going to halve the ground area we need to devote to solar panels or radio meshes or whatever.

So we can beam energy down from space without frying everything in its path, but we are working in the safety margin; if something goes wrong, a member of the public could be inconvenienced unless they were already avoiding legitimate activities.

Maybe some other sort of beam is safer than sunlight ?
If so we can have a more concentrated energy beam that people can more safely walk through.
Microwaves cook my tea, so I doubt that a megajoule of microwaves will do an order of magnitude less damage to my body than a megajoule of sunlight.

It seems to me that a focused beam is too big a risk.
While a diffuse beam could be technically safe, a system that was socially acceptable is unlikely to be a financial improvement on solar panels - even if the energy put into the beam cost nothing.

Clouds block sunlight and u/v; what sorts of radiation do they allow through ? Do we have better protection against this and does a constant supply give a greater energy yield ?

What have I missed ?

BBC Radio 4 news today described the Supreme Court decision as "trans people cannot use single-sex spaces". No mention of the wider points of the judgement.

They went on to report that the British Transport Police have announced that transwomen will be searched by men. Why would a search happen in a single-sex space ? Surely it needs to happen in a private space which has no need to be gendered ?

*My words aren't quite right, they didn't mean that they cannot use spaces reserved for their birth sex.

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As to prisons (which I read wont be much affected by this ruling, because of the way they have implemented existing policies) I would have thought that the starting point was the prisoner's expressed (or perhaps physical) gender *at the time of the offence*. Thus a rapist who then claims to be trans has to lump it in a male prison, but a transwoman who had SRS 30 years ago goes to a women's prison if she is convicted of opposing the new protest laws.
I'm open to consider subtleties I have missed.

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I am becoming convinced that Director of Public Prosecutions is not good experience for a future Prime Minister.

How would you feel about Musk's Mars colonisers having a dummy run Antarctica ?

There is a common feeling that Antarctica should be "preserved" and saved from being spoiled by man.

On the other hand, if Musk's people can't survive in Antarctica they don't stand a chance on Mars (though it does have areas without half-years of light and dark).

https://action.wemove.eu/sign/2025-02-save-green-deal-petition-EN

The European Green Deal is the most significant environmental and climate protection programme the European Union has ever launched. It is a real milestone for nature conservation, climate protection and the circular economy. In the last five years, 38 EU laws have been adopted to make Europe more climate-friendly and economically sustainable. Their implementation will take Europe a considerable step forward in climate protection and transitioning to a sustainable economy.

However, the ambitious roadmap to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050 is under threat from the Europe-wide shift to the right.

An alliance of right-wingers and conservatives in the EU Parliament and EU member states is putting pressure on Ursula von der Leyen. The Commission President intends to present proposals that will significantly undermine the Green Deal in the coming weeks. And this is just the beginning. More is to follow! The so-called ‘omnibus’ proposals are a veritable festival for the polluters’ lobby. Under the guise of reducing bureaucracy, the EU Commission wants to gut the Green Deal systematically. The end of new climate-damaging combustion engine cars is just as much at risk as protecting fundamental human rights through the European Supply Chain Act. The EU Commission does not even want to enforce existing legislation for the expansion of renewable energies.

This attack on the Green Deal not only jeopardises the basis of our survival but also the future of a prosperous European economy.

Facebook to drop independent fact checking. And worse: As part of these changes, we will be moving the trust and safety teams that write our content policies and review content out of California to Texas and other US locations.

I noticed that this building with a blocked circular window under the eves
A stone building with sloping gutters

has gutters that slope towards the middle. This might just be age and poor repair, but this is Kendal, a town known for rain.

If you look closely at this google street maps picture of the other side of the building, you can just see a typical Kendalian feature: the slates at the bottom of the roof are larger than the ones at the top - fewer gaps where there is most running water which might leak through.

I suspect that the gutters slope to speed the water into the downpipes.

I still think of Royal Mail as synonymous with the post office, so this sight Two posters on a wall inside a Post Office. One advertises Amazon, the other DPD and Evri

Two posters on a wall inside a Post Office. One advertises Amazon, the other DPD and Evri

brought me up short.

Scroll down https://www.postoffice.co.uk/ a page or two and you will see Our online carriers followed by equal-sized logos for Royal Mail, EVRi and DPD.

The £1 minimum charge for non-Royal Mail carriers is no longer a barrier.

I've been playing https://globle-capitals.com/game where you guess a capital city and it tells you how far away you are.

My latest guess is 0km from the right answer. Can you tell me the two capitals ?

I’d advise you to avoid that at all costs. She’s Scottish, not Irish.”

“I’m not sure I understand the difference.”

“Briefly, Irishmen, drink whiskey and sing ballads. Scottish men wear
skirts, and play darts with telephone poles. They aren’t the same.”

Darts is scored for accuracy, the Caber Toss is scored for style, but they are both measured on a clock-like face.

Six months after her report into gender care for children, BBC Women's Hour interviewed Hilary Cass
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0023q2z
What I hear in this interview is not what I expected after reading much of what I read about the report.

She appears to believe that gender questioning children should get care for all their needs, including puberty blockers where appropriate. One of her reasons for saying that they may not be appropriate is that currently the average age to *start* them is fifteen, which is too late for these to be useful to many of them. She says it might be better for people that age to go straight to gendered hormones !

The Conservative government wanted to spy on all of our bank accounts on the premise of dealing with welfare fraud and error. We objected and they were defeated.

Now Starmer wants to bring this back:

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-the-government-from-spying-on-all-of-our-bank-accounts

They already have the power to check suspicious bank accounts for benefit fraud.
They do not need the banks to snoop when there is no suspicion.

I hoped that a change of government would get rid the the authoritarians.*

* Yes, I did think it was unlikely, but I did hope so.

Is someone using an LLM to write on-topic forum replies:

Thread subject Question about the new return a reference check?

Certainly! When considering the new return on a reference check, it’s essential to assess how the insights align with the candidate’s experience. For instance, if a reference highlights the candidate’s work on outdoor projects, including their management of a balcony turf installation, it could provide valuable context about their practical skills and suitability for the role. Understanding these details helps ensure a more informed hiring decision.
?

Only thing is, this is a programming forum and the discussion is not about checking a job reference.

Of course, a human could also make this mistake.

I saw a lady in a burka (or a niqab) yesterday.
She was walking down the street hand-in-hand with a man.

I told my wife I'd never seen a woman in a burka with a man before.
She pointed out that it was unlikely that I'd seen a woman in a burka without a man !

I realized this was the first time I'd ever seen a woman in a burka in real life *and* the first time I'd seen a woman in a burka with a man, even including in pictures or on TV etc.