it is insane to me that they rejected moving to zonal pricing. zonal pricing would give incentive to move power demand closer to production, create costs to nimby-ism, and give the benefits of lower costs to those who live closer. but it might make energy cost more down here in the south east and (in particular) London while benefiting the North and Scotland so we can't have that
This is covered in the article. The uncertainties brought about by zonal pricing are not really worth it, given that the main obstacle is the need for network reinforcement. The UK is just not that big! Introducing a complicated market reform which will be obsoleted within a few decades doesn't make sense.
Sweden used to have a single zone even though most generation is in the sparsely populated north and most consumption is in the slightly more populated south. Then they had to move to a zonal model because of pressure from Denmark who complained of the unfair competition for industry wanting to be in nearby Sweden and there was a move to a (IIRC it was actually UK-inspired) "nord pool" 'fake auction' energy market. It sucks for consumers :(
They abandoned it because it does not solve anything and it is political suicide. Most people would have ended being forced to pay more than they already pay without alternative, so would not have helped solve grid constraints, either.
Could you explain more? It appears economically self evident to me that it would improve the situation but I'm not in the industry and there's probably much I don't understand.
I would say that improving transmission seems like a much better solution but again I think zonal pricing can help there as it could then be more easily sold to the public as being able to import the cheaper (say) Scottish energy to your local zone, whereas at the moment there's no apparent direct cost associated with blocking pylon projects forever.
The majority of the population live in regions that would become more expensive. Additionally the majority of Scottish constituencies vote for their nationalist party, so the major national parties don't have any chance of getting seats from Scotland, where energy prices may fall slightly under such a scheme.
> The majority of the population live in regions that would become more expensive.
Yes, and if you are an individual, family, or even the vast majority of businesses you aren't going to move to Scotland over this, you are going to pay, no choice. So effectively this would have increased bills for most people, so bad politically, with only a marginal change to demand.
0 based is much simpler for any mathematical calculation done with the indexes. only reasons I can think where you need to handle it is when getting the last index from the length of the array or when interacting with the user. With 1-based you'll need to subtract or add 1 all over the place when doing almost anything
I will always have a case that has a cut-out for the camera so it still lays flat and it's otherwise thinner (or the case is thicker and thus more protective) than it would be if the camera didn't stick out slightly
I can make that argument wholeheartedly, not even as a “steelman” when it comes to legitimate advertising but so much of it is criminal, morally if not legally —- and the victim is not just the viewer but also the advertiser which is running ads that are completely mistargeted, that damage their brand, or get fraudulent clicks —- I remember the layout of anandtech always shifting around so you would try to click on a link and just before you did an ad would slide under your finger and ka-Ching! Was it by accident or design.
On the other hand I’ve known people who sold ads for newspaper and radio and all of them had some sense of ethics.
the best author-read audiobook I've listened to recently has been Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky[0].
He did a really good job and I would never have guessed it was the author himself. As you say, it's a very different and difficult job.
Absolutely! I listened to it just a couple weeks ago - I was amazed at how good his narration was! He had various voices, accents, great pacing, etc. Tchaikovsky is as good of a voice actor as he is an author. (Actually, maybe a bit better.)
The best author narrated books, by far, are narrated by Douglas Adams. He's recorded all his books, and they're all great. There's something special hearing the words coming straight from the genius himself.
I had a joint account with an ex who now lives abroad and I no longer have contact with.
I talked to the bank and there was no way to close the account without both of us present.
Recently they released a chat bot on their app and so I asked it to close the account and the bot did it for me! That's the best success I've had with a CS bot.
Possibly the policy changed in the mean-time or the lack of activity in the account for several years allowed it to happen (though the humans never told me after x years of inactivity I'd be able to close it)
> Recently they released a chat bot on their app and so I asked it to close the account and the bot did it for me!
Have you filed a support ticket for that? It's clearly a bug. It should have forced you to call an agent so they could upsell you on a premium service. /s
Dual failure of the locking mechanism is extremely unlikely.
These are not switches that are regularly used so a muscle memory issue also seems very unlikely (but is still the most likely non-suicide scenario)
Despite being born in the UK to a British father my character wasn't previously British due to parents being unmarried and being born after 1983 but before the 2006 rules update.
I'm not totally sure when but I think some time in the 2010s the 2006 update became retroactive so my character was allowed to play. Didn't have to do too many side quests - the main one was retrieving father's birth certificate.
My character also had to attend the endgame ceremony and swear allegiance to the queen, which seemed odd for someone born in the country and lived here all his life
