#editorial | Logs for 2017-01-15
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[00:00:08] <nick> which is what some already went with when it was ruled filing A50 should go to parliament first
[00:00:21] <nick> ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE and such headlines
[00:00:28] <charon_> that seems ridiculous. the gov doesn't have the power to grant itself the power to do something it doesn't have the power to do
[00:00:40] <charon_> if you follow that
[00:00:46] <nick> to ensure the sovereignty of government and UK parliament, we must quickly skirt around it.
[00:01:45] <nick> various UK govs have done it, but they generally dont do it over things the public has an overt awareness of
[00:02:13] <charon_> maybe you need a judicial ruling on whether it is in scope of royal prerogative
[00:02:28] <nick> that's what's happened, which means they can't do it that way
[00:02:44] <charon_> aha
[00:02:49] <nick> it has to be debated in parliament
[00:03:09] <charon_> i get it now, you did say that but i glossed over that line
[00:03:14] <nick> but the government gets to frame that debate, so rather than on the what an exit will be, it will just be on if parliament will permit the government to do it
[00:03:44] <nick> it's just going to be a longer version of 'brexit means brexit'
[00:06:38] <charon_> i guess it makes a twisted kind of sense. but it's probably the worst way to go about it. like a 5 minute bug fix instead of a real patch
[00:07:25] <nick> my opinion is the government is only concerned about the survival of the conservative party
[00:08:07] <nick> they got shaken up twice in the last two elections... ended up in coalition last time... UKIP got a large amount of support this time, chipping away at their core voter base
[00:08:50] <nick> they only pledged a vote on the EU to keep the disillusioned on side, the controlling interests of the party were not really into it
[00:09:55] <nick> UK PM had to step aside as he was pro-remain and the vote didn't go his way... current PM was also remain, but less public about it and has the ghost of thatcher about her, so she gets a pass from the tory faithful
[00:11:08] <nick> https://www.theguardian.com
[00:11:10] <exec> └─ 13Exclusive: what Theresa May really thinks about Brexit shown in leaked recording | Politics | The Guardian
[00:11:48] <charon_> is May doing a good job? i seem to recall she was sort of drafted after Johnson realized he'd actually have to take responsibility for leading after the vote
[00:12:20] <charon_> and decided he didn't want it
[00:12:34] <nick> may is doing a good job in keeping the party together
[00:12:38] <nick> for the country, i don't think so
[00:12:52] <nick> she's the architect of the 'snoopers charter' after all
[00:13:11] <charon_> oh yes. that is not a good thing
[00:13:42] <nick> and the only thing she's been strongly against with the europe thing
[00:13:49] <nick> is the 'human rights' people are afforded
[00:15:02] <nick> which is stupid anyway, because the bits that cause the biggest problem for the country, about deporting people i think
[00:15:18] <nick> the UK has a unique interpretation of that part of ECHR, which no other government does
[00:16:24] <charon_> let me guess: if we don't see, it we don't care?
[00:16:42] <charon_> bad comma placement
[00:16:50] <nick> the general consensus is... the uk gov is the only one that follows EU laws, all the other countries do what they want
[00:16:58] <nick> but those same countries bully us to follow the laws
[00:17:16] <charon_> god, how petulant
[00:17:19] <nick> in reality, all the countries do selective enforcement, and often use the EU as a way of implementing laws that would be unpopular
[00:17:29] <nick> but the governments in question can blame the EU for them
[00:18:41] <nick> you know the best bit, charon_
[00:18:57] <nick> the most coherent plan the government has for the EU exit...
[00:19:09] <nick> on exit, import all the EU laws directly into UK law
[00:19:14] <charon_> !
[00:19:15] <nick> then work out later what bits we like and what we dont
[00:19:46] <charon_> that is... i'm speechless at how dumb that is
[00:19:58] <nick> after all the years of integration, there's little choice
[00:20:11] <nick> so much of UK law is 'refer to EU directive x' or 'EU trade paper y'
[00:20:43] <nick> it's sadly the most coherent and practical process offered
[00:20:45] <charon_> it must be spaghetti if that seems like the best choice
[00:20:46] <nick> and it's still insane
[00:21:16] <nick> well when they tried to come up with a statistic but couldn't
[00:21:28] <nick> it went something like this "between 15% and 60% of UK laws come from the EU"
[00:22:35] <charon_> is stonewalling something possible for a long MP?
[00:22:43] <charon_> sorry, lone MP
[00:23:04] <charon_> like the american senate fillibuster
[00:23:10] <nick> i don't believe so
[00:24:09] <charon_> i was thinking about some remain politician willing to give up his career to stop it and years later everyone is glad he did
[00:24:24] <charon_> or hates his guts more, who knows
[00:24:53] <nick> it's not going to happen... i am confident the uk will leave the eu
[00:25:00] <nick> but that by itself can be meaningless
[00:25:09] <nick> my assumption is we'll get the worst of both worlds
[00:25:45] <charon_> if you use all the same laws, and still have reciprocity on citizenship/work visas. then what has changed?
[00:26:02] <nick> symbolic stuff
[00:26:28] <charon_> and who the hell is going to do the work of pruning that 15% - 60% of the legal framework?
[00:26:40] <nick> point is, it will take a long enough time, that so much will change in the world, that it just wont matter
[00:27:16] <nick> it's going to be a good 10 years before the full effect of brexit can be quantified, and by then the political landscape will be different
[00:27:20] <nick> and the economic landscape too
[00:28:07] <nick> we'll be bitching about the UN by then i'm guessing
[00:28:19] <nick> with some more misdirected but perfectly valid resentment
[00:28:39] <charon_> damned UN. always making us were blue helmets
[00:28:43] <charon_> wear
[00:30:01] <nick> i'll never forget it.. one of the pearls of wisdom from my grandfather... 'international law is for other countries, not for us'
[00:30:35] <charon_> that sounds like the sort of thing an american would say too
[00:31:27] <nick> he also told me one christmas day that he would disown me if i bought russell brand's book
[00:32:08] <charon_> the comedian?
[00:32:25] <nick> he interrupted me in my pointing out the irony of a book about 'revolution' being on sale for £20
[00:32:31] <nick> to say that he'd disown me if i bought it
[00:32:32] <nick> and yes
[00:33:08] <charon_> oh, i see he's more political than i knew
[00:33:47] <nick> he's not, he's an asshole who saw an avenue to revitalize his career
[00:34:24] <charon_> fair enough
[00:35:15] <nick> frankie boyle is a much better example of a comedian who has a political agenda of sorts in that regard
[00:36:00] <charon_> that name i am unfamiliar with
[00:36:09] <charon_> to the wikipedia mobile
[00:40:20] <charon_> not much on the wiki. some about controverisal jokes
[00:41:36] <nick> http://www.thepoke.co.uk
[00:41:38] <exec> └─ 13The Guardian has refused to publish Frankie Boyle’s latest column attacking the Tory cabinet – read it here | The Poke
[00:44:26] <charon_> no way do i get all the jokes, but that's pretty funny nonetheless
[00:48:12] <charon_> and very sharp
[00:48:48] <nick> he's unlikely to make the transition to a US audience, but is far more coherent than brand
[00:49:26] <nick> but ya'll seem to be happy with James Corden for whatever reason
[00:51:14] <charon_> david letterman was the last person to even be mildly subversive on a network talk show
[00:52:49] <nick> James Corden seems like the kind of person that things subversive is a style of musical theatre
[00:54:08] <nick> anything i've seen from US talk shows have made me go blah.
[01:01:15] <charon_> do not watch jimmy fallon. he'll make your hea dhurt
[01:05:18] <nick> noted
[01:07:11] <charon_> you brits have a stronger tradition of public figure ridicule than we do
[01:08:28] <charon_> we're more respectful, occasionally crossing the line to fawning
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[05:06:08] <Fnord666> #fite bytram
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[18:16:05] <charon_> i hate (but secretly love) telling customers that they're idiots
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[19:47:19] <Fnord666> charon_ - you around?
[19:50:16] <Fnord666> hey nick
[19:50:26] <Fnord666> how's it going?
[19:50:28] <nick> howdy
[19:50:46] <nick> mtn dew and cigarette means it's goin'
[19:50:52] <nick> how about you?
[19:51:53] <Fnord666> it's going. Coffee for my vehicle of choice for my caffeine
[19:52:55] <Fnord666> wondering what charon_ is doing to his submission
[19:53:42] <charon_> i am around, but at work
[19:53:59] <Fnord666> I figured seeing your earlier comment
[19:54:15] <charon_> oh, i had it open to make sure i had put a link to the source, which i did
[19:54:16] <Fnord666> just wondered if I can move your submission to the story queue
[19:54:24] <Fnord666> ok
[19:55:53] <charon_> looks pretty important, and of course released on a friday afternoon
[19:56:09] <Fnord666> of course.
[19:56:37] <charon_> also, hello gents
[19:56:49] <Fnord666> the nice thing is the time slot just works out for 8am monday for the story
[19:56:54] <Fnord666> howdy
[19:57:55] <charon_> hah, people can spend the whole workday bickering
[19:59:53] <Fnord666> sometimes I wonder if I should be trying to queue up some stories in more favorable time slots
[20:00:10] <nick> there's an interesting story?
[20:00:22] <Fnord666> we do get them occasionally
[20:00:50] <Fnord666> but maybe a eurocentric story more towards daytime there rather than the middle of the night
[20:01:06] <Fnord666> or am i overthinking it
[20:01:07] <Fnord666> ?
[20:01:37] <charon_> i do that sometimes too
[20:02:10] <nick> i don't think there's enough EU based people for it to make a difference
[20:03:10] <charon_> not the US/EU split. but putting stories in time slots so there will be more activity on them
[20:04:02] <Fnord666> or a story that I think would deserve more discussion than it would get if it runs at 4am on Saturday.
[20:04:28] <nick> as long as it's not on a weekend, time doesn't seem to make much difference
[20:04:54] <nick> but if there's a story that you think should get the best opportunity, i usually put them somewhere around 13:00 UTC
[20:05:05] <nick> gets all sides of the pond an opportunity
[20:05:19] <Fnord666> that did seem like about the sweet spot
[20:05:36] <nick> but if it's about guns or something, then you can probably put it at 4am on sunday and it'll still get over 100 comments...
[20:05:42] <charon_> like the spaceX launch story has 4 comments, two of which are trolls
[20:06:25] <nick> it's a difficult one for me, because i personally think elon musk is an asshat, so i take some pleasure from that...
[20:06:28] <Fnord666> if they wanted coverage they shouldn't have launched on a Saturday!
[20:06:51] * charon_ bows to Fnord666's impeccable logic
[20:07:07] <Fnord666> do it during the week when people have nothing better to do than work and are looking for a diversion...
[20:07:58] <Fnord666> maybe it was a snub by the FAA
[20:08:06] <Fnord666> to give them that launch window
[20:08:10] <charon_> definitely
[20:08:41] <Fnord666> I'm torn re Elon Musk.
[20:09:01] <Fnord666> He may be an asshat but he's pushing progress forward
[20:09:37] <nick> he's symbolic, but i don't think he's doing anything actually constructive
[20:10:56] <nick> everything he does is tied deep into monetization and finance, the lifespan and ownership of the products he's working on is not something i'm into
[20:11:41] <nick> he's building his own little cult of personality to be the steve jobs of infrastructure
[20:12:01] <nick> a one man TBTF institution
[20:13:52] <charon_> in the US at least, he has pushed solar power and electric cars into common knowledge. they used to both be kind of fringe hippie crap, but now people talk about them as normal things, possibly inevitable
[20:14:18] <charon_> maybe it was right time/right place, and someone else would have done it
[20:14:18] <nick> that's why i said he's symbolic
[20:16:03] <nick> like with TSLA and SCTY merger, take two businesses with cashflow problems to make one huge business with cashflow problems that cannot fail due to how much of other people's money and ideology is tied into it.
[20:27:39] <nick> 'Elon Musk’s $38MM generates profit of $1.4BB, or 3,600% ROR- a VC payout
[20:27:40] <nick> Taxpayers’ $465MM- generates profits of $12MM or 2.6%ROR- not a VC Payout'
[20:28:24] <nick> https://www.marketslant.com
[20:28:26] <exec> └─ 13Tesla-The Worst is Yet to Come | MarketSlant
[20:29:36] <nick> SolarCity borrows $165MM from SpaceX at market rates of about 4.4%
[20:29:36] <nick> SpaceX uses govt loans (2.0%?) to lend $165MM SolarCity
[20:29:36] <nick> SolarCity borrows another $90MM from SpaceX to avoid defaulting on first SpaceX loan
[20:30:15] <nick> "The interdependent relationships between the 3 government subsidized companies Elon Musk owns or has a controlling stake in are an abuse ofgovernment largesse towards Green Energy. Taxpayer money is being used at market risk without market returns to prop up 3 unprofitable companies. While we do not debate the technology Tesla has developed, we question the leverage with which these companies are able to operate under."
[20:37:16] <Fnord666> wow
[20:38:26] <charon_> that seems alittle shady
[20:39:16] <nick> so the technology by itself is all well and good, but the businesses they're tied to are something else entirely
[20:46:21] <nick> and as far as i'm aware, the only way TSLA got one quarter of profit was saving up the years credits from other manufacturers, where they pay TSLA for the 'green credits' instead of producing an EV of their own
[20:47:08] <charon_> isn't that how business works? you lose money for years until you start to make money
[20:47:53] <charon_> i agree, the take out a loan to pay off a loan looks shady, but i was under the impression that big time finance is all like that
[20:48:18] <charon_> see also: amazon
[20:49:02] <nick> 'Tesla recently reported a Q3 GAAP profit of $22 million thanks to ZEV credit sales of $139 million, together with an estimated $15.5 million in other regulatory credits.'
[20:49:51] <nick> it's easy to be a visionary when you have access to billions of government funds with no strings attached.
[20:50:38] <nick> and it's not how business works when that funding comes from the government itself
[20:51:13] <nick> TSLA has a future, but has no real path to positive cashflow and profitability
[20:52:12] <nick> well they do, but it's such an abstract.... like the need to build the battery plant and combine TSLA and SCTY to have the capacity to keep up with anticipated demand, which puts them a few more billion into the red in the process.
[20:53:05] <nick> 'In past five years, Tesla failed to meet more than 20 of his projections, and missed 10 goals by nearly a year on average; Musk says he ‘doesn’t set targets that I know can’t be met’'
[20:53:56] <nick> or like the most recent version of events... they didn't deliver the number of vehicles they expected... because they were so busy building even more of them or something
[20:55:13] <charon_> my POV is that if we want cheaper batteries, some one needs to build the battery plant. so if he's willing to incur the risk to do so, let him. his own personal fortune is tied up in this too
[20:55:29] <nick> The company has a future and will only continue to gain prominence and relevance, but it is definitely not based on consumer demand and an organic evolution of the energy markets
[20:55:44] <charon_> and there are plenty of businesses sucking on the gov't teat with not even a glimmer of such results
[20:56:57] <nick> considering he's been a billionaire for a long time now, his personal stake is not going to send him to the poor house
[20:57:18] <nick> and because he's a creditor, if the businesses do fail, he'll be first in line to get his money back on the liquidations
[20:59:06] <nick> as i said before, the technology is the technology
[20:59:13] <nick> and that's all well and good... happy about that
[20:59:54] <nick> but the way the businesses are structured is very much same old shit, not visionary at all, not progressing and opening up opportunities for other innovators and businesses to emulate or be inspired by his successes
[21:02:52] <nick> he's managed to find himself worth 12bn whilst investing 'all is money' in businesses that are losing money every day
[21:04:41] <nick> if only i could do that
[21:05:11] <charon_> sorry, been with customers, that's why i can't reply regularly
[21:05:31] <charon_> bailing out the banks in 2008 to keep the economy from completly cratering seems like a necessary but poor investment since it helped bad actors.
[21:06:12] <charon_> securing loans for someone who is actually building new infrastructure seems like a slam dunk win
[21:07:01] <nick> but as i mentioned above, all i see is Musk wanting to be the infrastructure versions of those banks
[21:07:51] <charon_> i guess you can argue he's doing too much too fast and not settling one business down before starting another
[21:08:11] <charon_> i think the hyperloop thing is kinda dumb
[21:09:45] <nick> i think if he hadn't tried to do everything, then i'd be more lenient
[21:11:19] <Fnord666> Clearly I don't know nearly enough about business on that scale
[21:12:51] <nick> he's clearly an intelligent guy and knows what he's doing with his businesses... but i don't think it's going to yield the benefits that the 'innovations' and changes in perception have the potential to
[21:13:20] <nick> he's not the messiah of alternative energy
[21:13:54] <nick> he's a businessman who's done very well for himself and has the benefit of playing with other peoples money because a long time ago he made paypal
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