How are teenagers going to know who to vote for at 16 if they haven't watched someone do a TikTok dance about it?

BBC: “What was your screen time?” Student: “Nine hours.” BBC: “You’re gong to have a lot more time to fill. What will you do?” Student: “Stare at a wall.”

Votes at 16 but at 17 the government is still setting your bedtime lol

I agree with @mattyglesias.

Getting hit by one of these at full speed and all evidence of me even being there in the first place is wiped away instantly

Andy Burnham seemingly entertaining the WASPI stuff is depressing. We've gone through much more process than necessary to decide rightly that there isn't a case. It's a huge amount of money at a time where we should be investing in growth.

This is really disappointing:

> be me > european in manhattan > spent years complaining about tethered caps back home > open my 1L bottle in the subway > cap pops off, hits the floor > NYC subway floor > cap is dead to me > commute is 1 hour > mfw walking through manhattan holding an open 1L bottle like a torch > mfw eu was protecting me all along

This seems unfair. Daily cycling journeys are up 13% to 1.5 million. Total cyclists injured is up 16% to 5,662. Given the rise in cycle hire ebike apps, a huge proportion of that 13% increase will be less experienced cyclists - whizzing about on limes, forests, and vois. (This is a good thing). The rise in casualties being roughly in line with the rise in cycling is actually good news. If you think about it for a bit you'd expect the rise in casualties to be *far higher* given a big increase of novice or occasional cyclists on the roads. Keeping cycling about as safe as it was despite more novices on the roads is a success. Oh, and thankfully fatalities have fallen to just six, the second lowest on record.

Just had 4 Nigel Farage attacking someone ads in a row, all within about 30 seconds. Why is this happening?

Every year I sit down with my mother to explain how to use her phone and every year Apple sends 750 engineers into their little labs underneath their demonic Cupertino crop circle to come up with new and exciting ways to confuse her

There's a common narrative around transit: countries like France care about public investment in rail, while the Brits let it languish so fall behind. This appears to fit reality: after the turn of the millenium France has built 21 new tram systems while Britain managed 2, the French have 5 metro systems that have been significantly extended in the last two decades while Britain has only 1, and it's not just the result of us concentrating everything on London: the Grand Paris Express blows Crossrail out of the water in scale. Something odd happens when I examine the OECD's rail investment spending data, though. For almost every year post 2000, Britain outspends France on rail. For every Avignon Tramway project (€135m) there was a Birmingham westside extension (£149m), the core difference being the French project is 5.2km while the british one is nearly 5 times shorter at 1.2km. The more projects you research the more the picture starts to take shape. Britain cares deeply about rail, funds it generously, and yet manages to build very little. It's a testament to our love of trains that Treasury keeps rewarding our deeply inefficient (and thus low ROI) rail construction system with more and more money. So next time you see someone railing about British railways, tell them the money isn't the problem.

101 days. Israel and Iran are trading fire, with several rounds overnight of attacks. The latest strikes follow an escalation between Israel and Hezbollah. President Trump urged Israel to show restraint. Oil is up ~4% but remains below $100 a barrel.

I'm glad these local "conservation" groups are getting the grief they deserve. You knew you were moving to Soho. If you don't like noise, there are hundreds of alternatives. I like street noise. It's fundamentally lovely.

not exactly a new development but it's fascinating how climate has just dropped out of what sunrise likes to talk about

Today, the London Underground is paralysed by strikes as one of the transport unions demands that London 'Make every weekend a long weekend', with their staff allowed to work four days a week for the same generous pay. Two points of context: 1. In 2023, the last Government created powers to require 40% service during strikes, as is the case in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and elsewhere. (In New York, transit strikes are simply banned.) Unfortunately the current Government abolished these powers upon coming to office, leaving TfL (and thus the people of London) almost powerless to resist these rent-seeking antics. Any future government can easily largely end London's transport strikes by simply reinstating a version of these powers. 2. Notice that the DLR, the London Overground, Thameslink and the Elizabeth Line are unaffected by the strikes. This is because TfL (a greatly underrated organisation) does not employ their staff: it contracts with a concessionaire, which then actually staffs the trains. This somewhat byzantine arrangement has been astonishingly successful in preventing strikes on the old Underground lines from spreading to the newer systems. It is vital that policy be maintained and extended as TfL takes over more suburban railways in the future.

Zack Polanski in April 2016 citing San Francisco as a prime example of why rent controls don’t work and stifle housing supply 🕊️

This completely takes Blue Origin out of the Artemis picture for the next 12 months, most likely. All of those Moon Base missions, man, it's bad.