desas

Wasn't that also a thing with the first Obama election? Before that, 2000 had Gore vs Bush and the Florida recount.

Is it escalating?

Usually their app, sometimes SMS.

SMS is outdated in a similar way that email is, it's something you use to receive notifications and messages from companies etc, it's not how you talk to your friends.

"leave it on the porch" isn't even a thing in the UK, unless you specifically nominate it as your acceptable secure place.

Amazon knock on the door, if you're not in then they'll come back tomorrow, and if you're not in, then they'll try the next day. If you're not in three days in a row they'll hold the package for three days, to give you time to arrange one final delivery attempt to your home, Amazon locker or pick-up point (neighbourhood shop). Eventually they'll just take the package back and refund you automatically.

In the UK both employer and employee pay payroll taxes (national insurance) at about 13% of salary, additionally employers must pay a minimum of 3% of salary to a pension.

Contractors paid themselves a minimum salary to avoid the payroll taxes. They then took the rest of their earnings as dividends from their personal services company instead, the combination of payroll taxes + income taxes being higher than taxes on dividends.

Since that ruse has been heavily restricted, employers have had to increase contractor pay to make-up for contractors having to pay more income tax + national insurance.

Countries in Europe have been gradually tightening up on corporations avoiding payroll taxes by declaring employees as contractors. In the UK it's known as IR35 working. The EU have recently proposed the platform working directive, aimed straight at this problem.

> it has to be prepared for them to take that money and spend it more or less immediately

Right, but the bank also knows that people are doing the exact same thing with other banks; borrowing money from the other bank which will get spent immediately back at this one.

Banks are prepared to meet the difference in money in and money out, they're not prepared to meet the total volume of deposits. When the bank gets this wrong there's a liquidity crisis (or a bank run) which causes Big Problems.

That's not how the banking system works in theory or practice. It hasn't worked like that for a very very long time.

Lending isn't limited by deposits, it's limited by central bank regulations.

Here's what the Bank of England says [0]

> if you borrow £100 from the bank, and it credits your account with the amount, ‘new money’ has been created. It didn’t exist until it was credited to your account.

> Regulation limits how much money banks can create.

Banks only need to maintain enough deposits to cover their liquidity needs - what they need to pay people withdrawing cash and what they need to transfer to other banks due to electronic money moving.

[0] https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/explainers/how-is-money-crea...

It's a landline thing. It used to be the case on analogue lines in the UK that the caller controlled the connection (probably because they were the ones being billed for it and the recipients phone couldn't communicate it's time to stop the bill).

That "feature" was copied into the digital world. Except now there's a very short timeout where after the recipient hangs up, the connection is terminated.

The difference is that licensed and regulated banks can scale it. Retail customers can trust them due to their long-standing reputation, their banking licence and linked to that, the FDIC insurance.

Only something like 10% of the world's money are physical bills and coins. The rest is electronic, just numbers in reputable databases.

The bank can rely on this fact. It only needs enough notes to support a likely amount of physical cash withdrawals each day.

As a guy who actually read the article, I can assure everyone else that this American is right

> In 2000, the U.S. only had 356 roundabouts. Over the past two decades, that number has grown to over 10,000.

> nobody gives a fuck about the brutalist structures being torn down, like the VA in Chicago or the Federal Building in Boston, because they're ugly

In the UK we have listed some of our most famous brutalist buildings for protection. This includes the Barbican Centre in London and the Corbusier inspired Park Hill in Sheffield - the largest listed building in Europe. It's not without controversy though.

Because nearly no-one wants to walk to the store, walk home, walk back to the store to return the cart and then walk home again.

I never drive to the store and I still wouldn't do that.

All ovens (as with nearly all household appliances) in the UK must be displayed with an energy label and include reference to it in adverts.

If the same ovens are available in the UK, then maybe look for the model number on a UK website.

I'm not sure that's exactly true in this context. At least, I've never been in the house in the UK where the electrics in the kitchen couldn't handle a kettle, and a water boiler for hot drinks isn't likely to use more.

Some people have instant boiling water taps with tanks, they're not unknown but rare and becoming increasingly less so. I think this is because a) they're relatively new here and b) last time I looked they cost about £1k plus fitting.

The Japanese water boilers look like they cost £200ish (vs £15 for a kettle) and are bulkier than a kettle. They will save practically no time - kettles boil fast here and while they're boiling it gives you time to put the tea in and any other preparations.

The UK could overthrow lots of places still, so long as the US didn't disagree with it.

"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads"

Very broadly and simply speaking you can write-off UK taxes against the US tax bill and vice versa. There's much more nuance than that though.

As of 2019ish the price limit is up to your employer, my employer has a limit of £5k

Not everyone can drive a car either. No-one is making the point that there has to be one method of transport to rule them all.

WordPress is both free and open source, what are the extra dollars for?

Could you expand? I don't follow.

WordPress is open source, you can already download it and do whatever you want.

It was heavily influenced from outside Britain though, particularly Le Corbusier

There's a shortage of GPs. Two of the small local surgeries near me have reduced opening times because they don't have the staff to staff them. The need is still there - the villages are growing, but the villagers have to travel to the next village if they're lucky enough to be able to get an appointment.

Yes for Scotland and Wales but not for England. The discrepancy is known as The West Lothian Question

> where extremely prestigious schools like Eton are called "public schools" for historical reasons.

In the UK public and private referred to who could access the schools (assuming they had the money), whereas in the US they refer to how the schools are funded.

Now the UK has a kludge. The former private schools don't really exist, they've mainly changed into independent fee-paying public schools not controlled or funded by the state.

In the meantime (i.e. centuries ago), the state started funding schools, including religiously selective schools and has been increasingly giving more independence to the schools it funds.

That's because Facebook didn't wait for the UK regulatory body to come to a decision before completing the acquisition.

You don't have to tell the UK Competition & Markets Authority about an acquisition before it happens, but if you don't then you risk something like this happening. While an investigation is ongoing it may block some steps towards integrating companies and it gets about six months to make a decision. Facebook then spent a few years appealing and negotiating. Presumably giphy spent all of this time in some sort of limbo.

Eh, it's pretty normal, see also War on Drugs, War on Terror, War on Poverty, War on Want etc.

And the National Videogame Museum in Sheffield - https://thenvm.org/