I think thenpoibt was more that it had a sectarian tinge, rather than being a left/right divide like elsewhere. So, maybe for different reasons than England. However, disaffected youth is always going to be at the core. The rise in middle aged rioters is a worrying trend.
Other MPs who still use X have begun examining alternatives, including Threads, which is owned by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, and the open-source platform Bluesky.
So near, yet so far. They had an enshittification sandwich and instead of swearing off it, they are wondering if they just need less nuts and more sweetcorn.
Home life is hard for tech enthusiasts. I’m tech support for the extended family and they’re pretty intolerant of my tinkering with things. Normies actually get quite upset really quickly if tech doesn’t immediately work the way they want. My router started having some problems that it took me a while to get to the bottom of, this messed with my Plex server availability. My wife got so frustrated with her TV shows not working when she wanted that she’s pretty much sworn off Plex and wants streaming subscriptions restarted.
This is where the huge popularity of Apple and their walled garden comes from. When I got married I made clear that I’m not doing tech support for any Apple products, so she switched to Android.
I’m not brave enough to push my wife to Linux (I’ve only found it to be acceptable for daily use very recently myself; and even then it was painful), when the things she uses the most are MS Office and Teams. She gets triggered if she ever needs to use my Linux computer.
Personally, Threads is the only social media platform where the content on it generally improves my mood by showing me lots of funny, cute or interesting content. It’s the only one where I don’t feel frustrated or angry or outraged by the content the algorithm surfaces or baited. It feels like the feed wants me to smile and cheer up or learn something new, rather than baiting me into getting angry and shouting at people. That counts for a lot, to me.
Good.
Governments should run their own mastadon instances, and provide official accounts for all their public servants, staff, whatever they are called, as well as an account for each agency.
I agree. But this is labour MPs. MP != Government even when members of leading party. Only those with ministerial positions are in government.
As Members of parliament outside ministerial government positions are considered to have free speech and not to be representing the government when speaking, The choice of communication media must be down to the individuals.
I think a cross-party Mastodon instance or something like it could actually be a good idea. The hard part would be deciding who's allowed to create accounts and when (or whether) to deactivate an account after a person stops fitting whatever qualification got them an account in the first place.
Being an MP, sure, that's a given. What about people running to be MP? What about people setting up fake parties / independently standing in order to get a place on there? Consider Count Binface. Clearly he should have an account on such a platform, but how the heck would he qualify without letting someone less sane on under the same criteria?
And then there's the fact it would need to be run by incorruptible third parties.
And the fact that fascist-leaning politicians would need to be allowed on there so they can't cry foul, despite the fact they'll all only ever post on X anyway.
But then, only a handful of MPs would use it even if it was the only platform available, so it being a potentially good idea is probably all it'll ever be.
As it is a licence and a bloody expensive one atm. The % of UK citizens joining are reducing rapidly.
More importantly for a government system. You can see the BBC requiring a licence to set up an account. This instantly makes it unappreate as a giverment distribution and communications system. As wealth has a huge input on access.
Honestly the BBC seems to be hanging on by a thread atm. It has lost a huge amount of trust. And many brits just find the cost vs service much more questionable then in the past.
PS this was the tories intent. But hard to see labour current doing anything to fox it.
Honestly though. For such a service. Id suggest mastidon sorta solves it. as anyone can already post from other servers.
So all you need is a parlimentary server. That alloows a second account for only MPs or those running for MP.
That limitation is hard to argue with. Dosent show any political bias. And only allows people like binface or any other nutty runner during an election period.
But they still have personal accounts they can link that allows them to comment without the parlimentary candidate Accolade during other times. Or with it if we some how end up with PM bin face.
I am not a construction expert, so check your sources on this.
My understanding is that, for new construction, spray foam is most often used in areas that aren’t likely going to be damaged by condensation, such as against concrete, or metal. I had looked into spray foam for my home, because my home was built in the early 80s–before building codes existed in my area–and there’s no cladding on the house and just fiberglass bats between the studs. Because there’s no cladding, there’s much more air incursion through the bats, esp. since the interior walls are lapped wood paneling rather than wall board. Spray foam would have been a total air barrier, but it would end up being applied directly to the inside of the exterior siding, which would be a nightmare when siding needs to be replaced, and would probably cause moisture issues.
The best solution appears to be to use 3" EPS foam cut to fit between the studs, and then use spray foam to fill any gap between the studs and the EPS. That still allows an air gap between the foam and the exterior siding so that moisture can evaporate.
In the case that’s being cited here, I’m not sure why they opted for spray foam over EPS or fiberglass bats. If their home is well sealed, then bats should have been perfectly sufficient, although they have a lower R-value per inch than EPS. Oh, and the difference between polyisocyanurate and EPS/XPS is about R1.5/inch, but that difference drops to about R.25/inch after a decade. That meanst that you don’t gain much in the long term when you use faced polyisocyanurate board. I’m not sure what blowing agents are used for polyiso; it might be more environmentally friendly to manufacture.
I looked into spray foam insulation but not only were there lots of risks, but it was more expensive than traditional warm roof insulation with PIR boards or similar. I do think people should research what they put in their own homes as it wasn’t hard to find information that ruled out spray foam insulation fairly quickly.
Having said that, there is clearly some sort of regulatory gap here as not being able to mortgage your home is a very serious consequence of a relatively small and seemingly innocuous home improvement decision.
When I first moved into my house I needed to improve the insulation as the existing stuff wasn’t sufficient. I reached out to a spray foam company who sent a salesman around. The guy was incredibly pushy and didn’t care about the minor details. When I was saying it was too much he called his manager up on the phone and was talking to her like she was a piece of shit that he’d trodden in. I reached a point and asked him to leave. About 15 minutes after he’d left the manager called me back directly sounding like she’d been crying, asking for feedback on the guy. Even after I said it was a terrible experience she continued to try and sell the service to me! It was probably some terrible double-act to get sales.
It left a bad taste, I got the feeling it was a terrible cowboy operation and they were claiming to be one of the major players in the UK. Seeing this and over time reading people’s experiences really makes me feel like I dodged a bullet by not getting foam spray insulation. It all sounded too good to be true.
‘Yea they happen in Northern Ireland but it was like, the Northern Ireland’s who are British loyalists so it totally doesn’t matter for the purposes of speculative anti English bit for a Welsh National paper. “
You don’t belong here, reactionary. Would you tell First Nations Americans that the white Europeans occupying their lands are real Americans, representative of them? Do you tell Palestinians that their occupiers are Palestinians?
Like I don’t understand why you’d bring such an obviously ignorant take to the table - do you genuinely know nothing of why it’s Ireland and Northern Ireland? Do you know nothing of the Troubles? Do you think the violence and ethnoreligious lines just disappeared when the good Friday agreement was signed? Do you not know about them because your education was inexpensive?
I think you’ve forgotten what the article is about and perhaps in anger, entered into a bit of performative leftism.
If you want to argue against my position that the article is claptrap, hand picked for a welsh audience, let’s go.
If you want to get into a fight, as you seem determined so to do, over broader and unrelated topics like colonialism and imperialism, there are plenty of people who will indulge you, but I will not.
Your position is based on your assumption that unionists in northern Ireland are representative of Irish people rather than English people, despite an ongoing race war over their englishness. Catholic and protestant communities are still walled off from each other to maintain the relative peace. The idea that imperialism and colonialism are some unimportant detail of the past is preposterous, they’re ongoing issues that make up the core of northern Irish politics.
“At the root of the problem are cowboy traders (unlicensed tradesman/contractor) who apply the foam without a full survey or appropriate expertise – but because of lenders’ caution, this is affecting other homeowners who had similar work.” also “because surveyors are unable to inspect the roof timbers behind the layers [for moisture], mortgage lenders tend to issue blanket refusals on properties where any foam is present.” Maybe in the U.S. we just use wood moisture meters to check for moisture?
Sounds like the foam is the issue, which may be down to the shade tree handy man they hired being unlicensed or uninsured to perform insulating. If a person isn’t a dedicated HVAC worker who has day-to-day experience with insulation types and how to properly apply them, then the work may be causing more harm than good.
If the insurance and mortgage companies have a list of guidelines needed for insulation installation, it makes sense that folks need to follow them to continue using their services. Spraying any old foam into nooks and crannies is a fine way of hiding problems.
The problem with this style of foam application, is that you cannot get to the wood to check the moisture content, without ripping down the foam (or probing through it, exacerbating any problem).
So there isn’t a way to test. And as there have been problems, the lenders won’t take the risk on any more.
My impression is that homes in the US tend to have more wood involved in their construction generally, so it seems plausible to me that US construction methods may be more experienced with ways of managing wood moisture
Just to clarify further: Condensation management as part of insulation is half the battle, but frequently overlooked.
The problem comes where cold surfaces meet warm air, and what happens to the moisture in the air at that point.
The spray foam seals the timber in a way that it cannot be accessed from the inside, but generally a membrane in not installed on top of the wood. So warm air can still get through.
If my room is full of lovely 21 degree air, and the outside is zero, then if that air is able to get to a nice cold roof truss, it will be dropping a lot of evaporated water on the truss.
And if that wood can’t get sufficient airflow to dry out, it’ll get damp. And eventually rot.
Meanwhile, you can’t even get to the truss to look at it, because it’s covered in foam.
So the mortgaging companies are (very understandably) staying away from that potential hot potato.
You could have a house that looks absolutely fine, until the trusses start collapsing.
The ways we work around it are either ventilation (having the roof itself still vented to the outside), vapour sealing (stopping warm air from getting to the insulation), or using ventilation that breathes (water/vapour can move through it, allowing it to dry out naturally).
They accuse ministers of washing their hands of the consequences after they insisted that it was the responsibility of traders and owners to decide whether to proceed with the work, and that the availability of mortgages is a matter for lenders.
My theory is that a lot of it in Northern Ireland is actually just paramilitaries trying to get what they want. This happened during brexit as well over the sea border. The areas where the rioting happened in Belfast also had big signs saying “THIS AREA NEEDS MORE SOCIAL HOUSING” and suddenly the solution for the riots that the Deputy First Minister comes up with is an agreement for more social housing. Also that random white-owned estate agents being attacked smells fishy to me.
Aye. Although I think they mainly operate in areas where the policing is less effective. Although it’s probably a chicken and egg scenario - Is the bad policing because the paramilitaries are there? Or are the paramilitaries there because of the bad policing
Northern Irish Protestant loyalists are essentially Englishman cosplayers. Just look at their Orangeman parades, with their bowler hats and Masonic aprons.
As in, Northern Irish cosplaying English or English cosplaying Northern Irish? If it’s the latter, Northern Ireland is not made up of English planters contrary to popular belief, nor is it in the UK because it was “stolen” by the English
Nah, they’re nutters with very weird ideas about Britishness, Irishness & everything else, but they no more look to the English for ideas about their own identity & how to manifest it than the English look to NI loyalists as a guide.
If anything they tend to rather despise Englishness, seeing their own culture as the one true, loyal holdout to the Union.
The aprons do seek to emulate Masonic regalia, but the ideals of the Orange Order are entirely contrary to those of Freemasonry, which in any case is not specifically English or even British.
It therefore seems plausible to suggest that the anomaly of the English – a powerful majority which often perceives itself as overlooked and ignored among the British nations – might play a role in explaining the current wave of protests and riots.
Interesting
Marco Antonsich, Reader in Political Geography, Loughborough University, Michael Skey Lecturer in Media and Communications, Loughborough University
I’ve heard a few stories like this now. It’s a really healthy way for a community to respond, and really shows the feeling of the larger segment of society.
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