It's anti FPV drone armour.
On what occasion would you wear THIS?? 😭View quoted post on X
Pete North
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Editor of The Manifesto Project. Disliker of bullet points. Irredeemable plane spotter. Politically homeless.
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Never felt more vindicated in my dislike of both.
Russel Brand deserves to go to prison just for this horrific interview aloneView quoted post on X
Energy policy wonks (the sane ones) have been warning about the stupidity of renewable energy for twenty years. Those in the know have long predicted this level of precariousness on the grid, and each year we creep closer to the winter where the grid simply cannot stake the strain.
I don't know if this is the year when the grid finally does fall over but we are seeing balancing cost spikes that mean we're in for some pretty eyewatering bills.
Regardless, the situation is now so precarious that there is very little resilience against unplanned events. We should prepare for the possibility of rolling blackouts. The government's recent chatter about stockpiling basics is not coincidental, and it's not because they fear an imminent Russian attack.
What's not being properly considered is what a blackout really means. Most people have experienced a few hours outage in recent memory, and know what a nuisance it can be. It is fairly frequent in my rural village, and the power goes down for the or four hours.
This is often problematic because it cuts me off from the internet so I can't do my work, and because the gas boiler is dependent on electronics, the heating stops working and we have no hot water. I can put up with it for a day. I can just go out for a few hours or walk to the pub down the road.
If, however, the power is out for two days, then most of the freezer foods start to defrost. You can mitigate that but after three days it all has to be thrown out. And, if it's a nationwide blackout, so does all the food in the supermarkets and the warehouses.
This, actually could be the best case scenario. We are taking it on faith that restarting the National Grid is a straightforward affair. As I understand it, it isn't and it could lead to two or even three weeks of rationed electricity. That's a long time to go without a warm drink, home heating and hot water.
It is likely that such a blackout would happen in the middle of a wind drought, at the coldest weeks of winter. That means people will die. It also leaves a lot of people stranded because most of us no longer keep cash in the house, and there won't be any working cash machines. They'll soon be emptied anyway.
That means we could see the looting of shops. Some out of opportunism, and others out of necessity. While the grid may take a few days to get back to normal, it could be several weeks before all the supply chains are back to normal. The wider cost to the economy is enormous, not least the collapse of investor confidence. This is a major downgrade in Britain's status as developed country.
At the best of times, it is said that Britain is only three missed meals away from anarchy. I don't think it's quite that bad, and communities will pull together to help each other out, but most places no longer have a pub, and the remaining ones are just as prone to problems that go with having no power or heating.
This is going to require a full emergency response form the government, but our civil contingency capacity is no longer what it once was. It could cope with a regional blackout due to a snow storm, but will rapidly collapse if the whole country is without power.
By this, I do not mean to scaremonger. It is simply a fact that there is very little supply chain resilience, and a quick glance at grid metrics tell you how unstable the grid is becoming.
It should also be noted that the European grid is more integrated than ever. The Ukrainian power grid is close to collapse and if it does, it has serious grid stability ramifications for its immediate neighbours. Mainland Europe may not have enough surplus energy to bail us out in a crunch.
This is the sort of thinking that should have been done before we decided to make our power grid weather dependent - but nobody in receipt of renewables subsidies gave it any thought at all. The profits are private but the losses will be socialised - to the tune of hundreds of billions. Unless you're in the tinned food or rechargeable torch business, you're in for a rough old time of it.
I don't know if this is the year when the grid finally does fall over but we are seeing balancing cost spikes that mean we're in for some pretty eyewatering bills.
Regardless, the situation is now so precarious that there is very little resilience against unplanned events. We should prepare for the possibility of rolling blackouts. The government's recent chatter about stockpiling basics is not coincidental, and it's not because they fear an imminent Russian attack.
What's not being properly considered is what a blackout really means. Most people have experienced a few hours outage in recent memory, and know what a nuisance it can be. It is fairly frequent in my rural village, and the power goes down for the or four hours.
This is often problematic because it cuts me off from the internet so I can't do my work, and because the gas boiler is dependent on electronics, the heating stops working and we have no hot water. I can put up with it for a day. I can just go out for a few hours or walk to the pub down the road.
If, however, the power is out for two days, then most of the freezer foods start to defrost. You can mitigate that but after three days it all has to be thrown out. And, if it's a nationwide blackout, so does all the food in the supermarkets and the warehouses.
This, actually could be the best case scenario. We are taking it on faith that restarting the National Grid is a straightforward affair. As I understand it, it isn't and it could lead to two or even three weeks of rationed electricity. That's a long time to go without a warm drink, home heating and hot water.
It is likely that such a blackout would happen in the middle of a wind drought, at the coldest weeks of winter. That means people will die. It also leaves a lot of people stranded because most of us no longer keep cash in the house, and there won't be any working cash machines. They'll soon be emptied anyway.
That means we could see the looting of shops. Some out of opportunism, and others out of necessity. While the grid may take a few days to get back to normal, it could be several weeks before all the supply chains are back to normal. The wider cost to the economy is enormous, not least the collapse of investor confidence. This is a major downgrade in Britain's status as developed country.
At the best of times, it is said that Britain is only three missed meals away from anarchy. I don't think it's quite that bad, and communities will pull together to help each other out, but most places no longer have a pub, and the remaining ones are just as prone to problems that go with having no power or heating.
This is going to require a full emergency response form the government, but our civil contingency capacity is no longer what it once was. It could cope with a regional blackout due to a snow storm, but will rapidly collapse if the whole country is without power.
By this, I do not mean to scaremonger. It is simply a fact that there is very little supply chain resilience, and a quick glance at grid metrics tell you how unstable the grid is becoming.
It should also be noted that the European grid is more integrated than ever. The Ukrainian power grid is close to collapse and if it does, it has serious grid stability ramifications for its immediate neighbours. Mainland Europe may not have enough surplus energy to bail us out in a crunch.
This is the sort of thinking that should have been done before we decided to make our power grid weather dependent - but nobody in receipt of renewables subsidies gave it any thought at all. The profits are private but the losses will be socialised - to the tune of hundreds of billions. Unless you're in the tinned food or rechargeable torch business, you're in for a rough old time of it.
Just for a moment I toyed with the idea of buying GTA6 because I was so completely consumed by the previous edition. But then I saw the price of modern consoles. I bought by X Box for around £150 in 2013. The modern version of this console is now £669.99 with the game coming in at an additional £70.
I knew when I bought my X Box that I would use it for GTA V and nothing else. I'm not a gamer but GTA is a cultural event and the game has a massive cultural footprint. I wanted to see what the hype was about. I was not disappointed.
GTA V was a masterclass in software engineering, storytelling and game play. It didn't take itself at all seriously and was not in any way infected with political correctness. It was flawless. Weeks of entertainment for less than the price of a TV.
Now, though, I'm going to need the better part of a grand for something I don't entirely trust, that I probably won't use for very long, with a sneaking suspicion that everything fun about it will have been censored or tamed.
I don't doubt that the game will be bigger in scope with more to do and more to see, but I don't see how it can top GTA V. I'm not even assured the graphics will be significantly better. Without essentially being photorealistic, I don't see that there is much scope for improvement.
There's also the small problem that I've probably aged out of it. Some say your never tire of planting sticky bombs on buses, shooting policemen, and clubbing prostitutes to death with a baseball bat, but I'm thirteen years older and marginally more mature.
The point for me, though, is that it fails in being a piece of mass entertainment the way GTA V was. I don't see that ordinary people in this economy can just pop out to Currys and drop a grand on a games console. It is unlikely, then, to have quite the same cultural reach.
More to the point, I have no desire to simulate these levels of wanton violence and destruction now that it is no longer that far removed from where we're at today. Casual savagery is now an everyday occurrence in our cities and I have no desire to invite it into my home.
That might change if there's a mod where I can blow up the House of Commons, but if I want mindless brutality and organised crime, I'll just jump on a train to Leeds.
I knew when I bought my X Box that I would use it for GTA V and nothing else. I'm not a gamer but GTA is a cultural event and the game has a massive cultural footprint. I wanted to see what the hype was about. I was not disappointed.
GTA V was a masterclass in software engineering, storytelling and game play. It didn't take itself at all seriously and was not in any way infected with political correctness. It was flawless. Weeks of entertainment for less than the price of a TV.
Now, though, I'm going to need the better part of a grand for something I don't entirely trust, that I probably won't use for very long, with a sneaking suspicion that everything fun about it will have been censored or tamed.
I don't doubt that the game will be bigger in scope with more to do and more to see, but I don't see how it can top GTA V. I'm not even assured the graphics will be significantly better. Without essentially being photorealistic, I don't see that there is much scope for improvement.
There's also the small problem that I've probably aged out of it. Some say your never tire of planting sticky bombs on buses, shooting policemen, and clubbing prostitutes to death with a baseball bat, but I'm thirteen years older and marginally more mature.
The point for me, though, is that it fails in being a piece of mass entertainment the way GTA V was. I don't see that ordinary people in this economy can just pop out to Currys and drop a grand on a games console. It is unlikely, then, to have quite the same cultural reach.
More to the point, I have no desire to simulate these levels of wanton violence and destruction now that it is no longer that far removed from where we're at today. Casual savagery is now an everyday occurrence in our cities and I have no desire to invite it into my home.
That might change if there's a mod where I can blow up the House of Commons, but if I want mindless brutality and organised crime, I'll just jump on a train to Leeds.
