Notices by iona 🐝 (iona@social.coop), page 15

Today's radio phone-in topic: naked selfies.

@porsupah The Antarctic is scary on the lower map, especially considering it's their midwinter. We know the Arctic is melting, but the Antarctic as well?

@ghost_bird @hollyamory I drive and I use public transport, so I can see both sides, and I've never felt the need to park in a bus lane or on tram tracks.

They must be the same people who drive round and round Asda car park waiting for a space near the doors to come free, rather than parking in any of the 150 unused spaces a 40-second walk away.

@hollyamory @ghost_bird Meanwhile in Notts https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-30138390

@ghost_bird @hollyamory I once suggested that the Sheffield trams be fitted with bullbars and snow ploughs, and any car obstructions would simply be booted out of the way at the car owner's expense.

@hollyamory Didn't bloated Yorkshireman Eric Pickles once propose a new law where it'd be okay to park on double yellow lines as long as you were just popping into the shop for fags and a pie?

It's worse on the Sheffield trams. People leave their cars parked on the tram lines and it clogs the entire network, because a tram can't go around.

@kensanata Something I noticed when I was in Ireland recently was the presence of a local credit union in every small town.

They do exist here in England, but they seem incredibly prevalent in Ireland, so it is possible.

@kensanata Small business owners I know in the UK have said that it's becoming harder and harder to deal with cash as small-town banks close down in the tens every month.

When it's a 20 mile round trip to the bank branch with your cash takings at the end of the day, that's a big expense. So even the smallest traders are installing PayPal and Stripe card readers, the PayPal tax being cheaper than the cost and risk of travelling with big amounts of cash every day.

@silverspookgames I'm not unemployed and destitute, I make a modest living selling radio and electronics stuff online and my goal has never been to Get Rich and become a Big Boss.

But I have to wonder if survival is all we have to look forward to for the next X years, which is an exhausting prospect.

Other countries are looking at how to organise the economy in a post-automation world. We're concentrating on Brexit.

I think I have figured out what's so exhausting about the current situation.

It's this nagging feeling that my life circa 2013/14 will turn out to be as good as it got, and it's all downhill from here as the economy and life chances decline for everyone with the current situation. In my early 30s, that's a demoralising feeling.

It's partly national politics, and partly me - my tech skills are well out of date. I wish there was something I could feel useful at rather than a useless parasite.

@Antanicus Can you perhaps CW stuff about pointing guns at people's heads?

@simon_brooke We have potential and a lot of skilled people, but our economy is built around banking, gambling, legal services and other extractive activities rather than economically beneficial things.

"What do we do when we don't need thousands of people to run the economy anymore?" is a question all countries need to work on, and many other countries are actively working on that. Sadly, we're spending our energy on the pointless Brexit project instead.

@simon_brooke We do, but it doesn't sustain the employment of mass numbers of people.

I have a friend who runs a successful business designing and making radio equipment that you can't get elsewhere. But it's very specialist stuff, and while it provides a modest living for him and three employees it's never going to grow beyond that.

That's where we are - very high quality manufacturing of very specialist stuff in small batches with a few people, rather than car factories employing 4,000.

@simon_brooke @fitheach Manufacturing (of actual tangible things - food, goods etc) as a share of Britain's economy is by far the smallest in the G7.

The Raspberry Pi computer is designed in Cambridge and made in South Wales. That should be the norm, but the fact that I know where it's designed and made means it's remarkable and unusual.

As far as I can tell, our economy goes in circles - we sell houses and cars to each other and sue each other, and that's it.

@mayel What is that building? I'm not familiar with London. (I can see it says Conway Hall, Ethical Society, I've just never heard of either!)

@ghost_bird I just had a drink of water and that was bitter, too.

Either it's a lingering effect from Monday's migraine or they've done something to the water supply because of the shortage. Our water is usually really nice in coffee, perhaps they are having to pipe it in from an area with crap water.

@fitheach @simon_brooke Everything is fine, we're stockpiling fucking Marmite 🔥

@ghost_bird ☕

My coffee this morning is really bitter for no apparent reason. It's the same coffee, same water supply and so on.

@ghost_bird Are you okay?