Randomness thread, part two.

[CoccoBill]

Well that wasn't the case in 1998, like I say I'd rather like to see what these guys would say today.

Not quite sure why 1998 specifically is a significant date, but there's been a consensus since 2001:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scient...climate_change

[OngBonga]

It was the date of the article I quickly scanned that claimed 50 of 60 climatologists in USA were sceptical, I didn't link it because it's 1998 and not particularly relevant regarding climate change today, other than to show that hasn't always been consensus, assuming that article was truthful.

That wiki link is interesting though, as it describes the consensus.

The current scientific consensus is that:


Earth's climate has warmed significantly since the late 1800s.[a]
Human activities (primarily greenhouse gas emissions) are the primary cause.
Continuing emissions will increase the likelihood and severity of global effects.
People and nations can act individually and collectively to slow the pace of global warming, while also preparing for unavoidable climate change and its consequences.

That last one is really interesting, because it's bollocks. There is nothing I can do as an individual. So we can make the precise same argument, that nearly all climatologists agree that I, as an individual, can slow down the pace of global warming, and that if I laugh at that and say it's not true, I'm a science denier. Right? It's literally scientific fact because of the consensus, that's how science works right?

[CoccoBill]

Well it's the same as voting really. Of course any single individual can't decide what happens by their actions, but 2/3 of all carbon emissions come from household consumption, if everyone does something it'll have a big effect. Surely energy production, logistics etc are the big and "easy" ones to fix first, but those alone probably aren't enough at this point.

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/m...ich-consumers/

[OngBonga]

"2/3 of carbon emissions..."

How drastically would this change if we relied entirely on renewables? This must also include car use, which is getting cleaner.

That article you've linked is doing an excellent job of passing the buck on to the consumers. Changing the behaviour of a global population is no easy task. Me eating all my eggs instead of chucking a couple away isn't going to change the global average temperature. Nations changing their source of energy might.

[CoccoBill]

Yeah what I just basically meant there. One person changing their behavior a bit means duck all, 7 billion changing them a bit means a lot. It's not scare-mongering, it's trying to get people to change their behavior. When enough of the population demand it, the nations are gonna also change their energy sources.

[CoccoBill]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2375109.html

thisisfine.jpg

[MadMojoMonkey]

Important part of this is "and the data". You're trusting the authority of the information. And in this case, a large amount of the data is historical, it's geological, or based on less reliable record keeping and measurements. And yet you trust it like you trust data you can confirm yourself.

That seems like misguided trust to me.

I'm trusting the authority of information, yes. I have researched their methods for determining these figures and frankly, it's fascinating and amazing... but not my forte' so I don't remember much of it. Not that you'd believe me anyway appealing to my own authority. Which is great.

It's just frustrating when you act like there aren't good answers to your questions then ignore when someone tells you about the answers and keep repeating that there are no answers. If this was a conversation about GR, you'd Google that shit and educate yourself. Why the hang up, here?


When "less reliable" data amounts to uncertainties less than 0.5 C for the past 2000 years, as opposed to 0.1 C for the current year... what's your actual problem with the data?

You're acting like climate science stopped in the mid-late 90's and we've just been regurgitating old news for the past 25 years.
That's probably not a realistic assumption.

[MadMojoMonkey]

2/3 of all carbon emissions come from household consumption

Excuse me? No. That sounds absurd. Closer to 2/3 of a %.

EVEN IF we are only looking at human sources of CO2, that's absurd... and human sources are dwarfed by any volcanic eruption, of which there are many per year.

Just looking at human sources makes sense, as that's what we can control, though.

But 67% coming from households is absurd. They're ignoring so, so much to draw that conclusion. Trans-Pacific shipping for one is just the worst.

I mean... do you have the source for that, 'cause I'm not an expert on this, but my gut is just not having it.
EDIT: found the source

They're putting all of industry that ends at a household on household consumption... which is stupid and not helpful. People buy what is available to buy. I can't choose what's on the shelf in the supermarket or how my electricity is produced by the utility company. I can't choose what fuel was used to ship products around the world or in most cases even find that out.

This is not a helpful way to look at the sources of GHG emissions.

[OngBonga]

If this was a conversation about GR, you'd Google that shit and educate yourself. Why the hang up, here?

Nobody has managed to turn GR into a political shitshow yet, thankfully. Also, GR is a great deal easier to understand than atmospheric fluid dynamics, it's basically geometry. Fluid dynamics on the scale of atmospheres is an incredibly large amount of collisions between particles, it's utter chaos, while GR is very elegant and behaves nicely until we get to really small or really fast. I kinda feel like the uncertainty in climate models just blows up to gargantuan numbers the more you try to analyse. Because of chaos.

When "less reliable" data amounts to uncertainties less than 0.5 C for the past 2000 years...

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about though. How in fuck's name can we even know that our uncertainty over 2000 years is 0.5 degrees? That seems rather arbitrary. Even still, that's pretty huge considering we're talking about a 1.5 degree rise in that time, like an entire 33% uncertainty. It's like saying we know that water boils somewhere between 65 degrees and 135 degrees, and pretending that's not only useful but telling us something important. We use this data to make definite conclusions that influence socioeconomic policy.

[OngBonga]

It's not scare-mongering, it's trying to get people to change their behavior.

Well if this is their plan to combat climate change we're fucked.

People aren't going to change their behaviour while the economy continues to cater for mass consuming. I mean, yeah let's not throw away food and only flush the chain after we've had a shit, but let's also continue to buy a new phone every time there's a new model, which is like once every other year. People aren't going to stop buying new phones unless they stop making them.

People adapt to their environment, and if the environment is providing things to consume, people will consume. It's not the responsibility of individuals to change their behaviour, it's the responsibility of governments to change the economic landscape.

[OngBonga]

Honestly, if they were telling us to stop buying new phones, and telling Apple to stop making them, I'd be more inclined to believe that they're actually worried about the impact humans are having on the planet.

They're not that worried though, are they?

[CoccoBill]

Who's "they"? There is no single they, there's advocates, lobbyists, scientists, politicians, journalists etc all with their own agendas, messages and methods. No matter what "they" say, half the population starts screaming it's alarmist or fake news, the other half that it's not enough. Your conclusion that we're fucked is accurate, unless some miracle happens.

[Poopadoop]

How in fuck's name can we even know that our uncertainty over 2000 years is 0.5 degrees? That seems rather arbitrary.

It's an estimate made by people who know how to make such estimates with statistical rigour.

Even still, that's pretty huge considering we're talking about a 1.5 degree rise in that time, like an entire 33% uncertainty.

That's not how a 95% confidence interval works. A 95% CI means that if we randomly sampled from the same distribution our data is taken from, then 95% of the time we'd get an estimate with +/- 0.1C (for today) or +/- 0.5C (for 1 AD), 95% of the time. It doesn't mean if the 95% CI is a third of the difference in means, there is 33% uncertainty that the estimate is accurate (which is what you're arguing).

Another, perhaps more intuitive way to think of it is in terms of likelihood. Looking at the data from 1 AD and the data from 2023, we can compare the likelihood of such data arising under two scenarios:

1) A difference of 1.5C (the observed difference between then and now), which we can call the GW model;

vs.

2) A difference of 0C that produced a spurious difference of 1.5C due to random noise, which we can call the Null model.


The likelihood is, to use a statistical term, a gazillion to one that the GW model produced these data vs the Null model. It's essentially broken the calculator. It's crashed excel. That doesn't prove the GW model is correct, it just says it's much much much and 10000 more muches more likely to be producing these data than the Null model.

The truth may well be somewhere above or beyond the GW model estimate, but it's astronomically unlikely its far enough below to match the Null model estimate. It's about as likely to be 3C as it is to be 0C. So if you want to entertain the idea that it's actually 0C, then you need to be equally happy to entertain the idea that it's actually 3C. Both are equally absurd given the data, but hey if you want to claim uncertainty and measurement error you have to be willing to go in both directions.

It's like saying we know that water boils somewhere between 65 degrees and 135 degrees

It's more like saying we know water boils somewhere between 99.99999 and 100.00001 degrees (and then someone else coming along and saying it boils at 65 degrees because of politics).

[MadMojoMonkey]

Nobody has managed to turn GR into a political shitshow yet, thankfully.

Thankfully, we have developed this method for telling the shit from the show... it's called the scientific method.
If / when politicians turn GR into a shit show, you have the knowledge and capability to research for yourself and convince yourself that they are, indeed, full of shit.
And you would.

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about though. How in fuck's name can we even know that our uncertainty over 2000 years is 0.5 degrees?

If only there was some way for you to Google that question rather than pretend it's rhetorical.

The answer isn't simple, but it's fascinating and cool. It involves Quantum Mechanics and some pretty high level probability and statistics stuff, but nothing you can't jive with.

That seems rather arbitrary. Even still, that's pretty huge considering we're talking about a 1.5 degree rise in that time, like an entire 33% uncertainty. It's like saying we know that water boils somewhere between 65 degrees and 135 degrees, and pretending that's not only useful but telling us something important. We use this data to make definite conclusions that influence socioeconomic policy.

No, it's not like that at all.

The 0.5 C is at 95% Confidence Interval. That means that if we took an equal amount of data from an identically randomly distributed data set, that we'd get the most likely value to be within those bounds 19 out of 20 times.

That's a 2 sigma result in prob-stats talk. The 95% confidence interval represents 2 standard deviations from the mean.

A difference of 1.5 C is so, so far beyond those bounds. I did check Poopy's math, and it checks out.
Indeed, the z score of 7.84 is obscenely high. Even Libre Office Calc can't distinguish anything above z = 7.7 from a probability of 1, i.e. it's a certainty. Now, that's a limit of the number of decimal places it's coded to work with, but at z = 7.7, the probability is *less than 1* by only 6(10)^15. Less than a trillionth of 1 percent. AND that's a gross over estimate because the z-score we want is larger than 7.7.

Wow, I didn't realise the intervals were THAT tight.

So the z-score for a change from 1880 to now that is actually 0C instead of 1C is z=7.84. IOW, the probability that it's just measurement error is essentially naught point naught naught and about a hundred more naughts before you get to a value greater than naught.

IOW, more naughts than can fit in this probability calculator app thingy.

https://www.omnicalculator.com/stati...0000000,z:7.84

(or at least that's what Big Solar told me to say. Big Wind was telling me the same thing but I told them to gft with their nighttime convection shit ruining the planet).

What this means is the probability that the change in temperature is REALLY 0 C since 1800 is less than a trillionth of 1%.

[OngBonga]

Just to be clear, I haven't argued that the rise is 0, I'm arguing that I find it plausible that climate change is being exaggerated and exploited by the powers of the world, that the data is manipulated and in turn that manipulates scientists. And I'm only arguing that's plausible, not what I truly actually believe. I guess I find it really hard to believe that you can look at 2000 year old rocks and tell what the average global temperature was at a given time with an accuracy in the range of a single degree. Maybe I'm not giving enough credit to geology, and other branches of science that help to make these estimates, but it just seems like while the information is there, it's ludicrously difficult to decode it.

Consider that we can have absolutely no idea precisely how warm it got for a few hours on a single day in Sicily in 1500 apply that globally, and you might understand the basis of my scepticism. We're much better equipped today than in the past to get a wide range of measurements, which refines the average better.

I believe that a part of the warming trend is possibly caused by our improving techniques.

And I'm not going to lie, a big part of why I can't be arsed to research this properly is because statistical mathematics is both boring and intense, and fluid dynamics is a huge chaotic mess when you cut it open and look at the blood and guts. GR isn't boring, and is elegantly simple (apart from those pesky extremes). I have an actual enthusiasm for GR, not so much with statistics and fluid dynamics.

So maybe it is just a flat out lack of intelligence on the matter that fuels my scepticism. But I'm really not one to be told I'm wrong unless I understand why I'm wrong, and I still don't understand how we can have such a degree of confidence in historical data that is obtained through different techniques and at a different frequency to modern data.

[OngBonga]

btw I know I'm probably using "fluid dynamics" loosely, but climatology is basically fluid dynamics plus thermodynamics on fucking steroids.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Just to be clear, I haven't argued that the rise is 0, I'm arguing that I find it plausible that climate change is being exaggerated and exploited by the powers of the world, that the data is manipulated and in turn that manipulates scientists. And I'm only arguing that's plausible, not what I truly actually believe.

Scientists gather their own data (as a collective of scientists). I mean, it's super common for a research project to collect enormous amounts of data, and the manpower needed to process that data can span multiple groups. Like when you get satellite time, you get someone to point a very sophisticated telescope at a certain portion of the sky for a certain period of time. Then the telescope scientists do that to the best of their ability and send you the data you requested. The scientists working on the data are often different scientists than those that collect the data. All of the data is from within the scientific community, though.

You make it sound like scientists sup at the teat of government data and eagerly await what the politicians have worked out to hand us to analyze.

I guess I find it really hard to believe that you can look at 2000 year old rocks and tell what the average global temperature was at a given time with an accuracy in the range of a single degree. Maybe I'm not giving enough credit to geology, and other branches of science that help to make these estimates, but it just seems like while the information is there, it's ludicrously difficult to decode it.

I like this.

Consider that we can have absolutely no idea precisely how warm it got for a few hours on a single day in Sicily in 1500 apply that globally, and you might understand the basis of my scepticism. We're much better equipped today than in the past to get a wide range of measurements, which refines the average better.

The thing is that evidence of the global average temperature is able to be sussed out from the geological record, whereas the local weather in XXXX is not.

We apply today's equipment and knowledge to refine our measurement techniques of ancient temperatures. The precision in our estimates comes from many different techniques and methods being analyzed for their own uncertainties then combined together with their combined uncertainties accounted for.

I believe that a part of the warming trend is possibly caused by our improving techniques.

Based on nothing at all. What happened to "I probably don't give enough credit to scientists"?

As if scientists themselves haven't matured into the field in the past 25 years thinking that the boomers before them were the idiots who got us into this mess and were probably not doing a very good job of understanding it.

Spoilers: this is totally the way it is. Every field of science is filled with "kids" who are trying to be passionate about solving climate issues. They really are jumping in and giving it their all. And have been for decades. These are passionate people who are intelligent and care and like poopy pointed out... there's no big money in big science. Scientists aren't millionaires in general. They don't do it for the money and prestige (except within their field from their peers). They don't have the same motivations as politicians.

And I'm not going to lie, a big part of why I can't be arsed to research

So if your actual position is "I don't get it" then why is your vocal position, "They're all liars"?

[OngBonga]

Had my first and hopefully last medical emergency today at work. Some dude collapsed in the reception. Was on the phone to 999 for over an hour waiting for the ambulance, basically continuously telling them he was breathing. Very very stressful, but I guess not nearly as stressful as it was for him.

1 hour 10 minutes for an emergency response at 5.30am. Ok Ludlow is relatively small and fairly isolated, but I'm 40 minutes from Hereford and an hour from Shrewsbury (both county "capitals"), and that's legal limit driving, not blue lights emergency driving.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Aw hell, man. That sucks. You good?

I hope the man's OK.

[Poopadoop]

That's a brutal experience, especially at 5.30 in the am.

[OngBonga]

I think he's ok, apparently it's a chest infection but there might be an underlying issue, no idea.

I'm good in the sense it wasn't traumatising or anything, but spending an hour monitoring someone's breathing while holding the line talking to emergency services is very much mentally draining, when I got home I was pacing the kitchen while making myself a cuppa, then had to sit in the garden for ten minutes. But other than the stress, I'm fine. Just been out for a bike ride, it was good to be out in the lovely summer rain to clear the mind!

[The Bean Counter]

I thought of you recently, Ong, as my uncle had a cardiac arrest in an Ibis when visiting his family and died. My cousin knew something was up and the staff opened the door to the room and were brilliant from that point on.

I hadn't realised until then how complicated it can be: a police officer had to officially call it, then wait for the coroner's office to collect him (since it was unusual circumstances). Otherwise, it would be the funeral director doing the collection, since ambulances won't take them. Neither is quick to collect.

It got me thinking there must be a procedure at every hotel and that's one perk of going with a chain hotel. I collapsed a few years ago in an independent Scottish hotel in the early hours and they were great, but clearly winging it.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I think he's ok, apparently it's a chest infection but there might be an underlying issue, no idea.

I'm good in the sense it wasn't traumatising or anything, but spending an hour monitoring someone's breathing while holding the line talking to emergency services is very much mentally draining, when I got home I was pacing the kitchen while making myself a cuppa, then had to sit in the garden for ten minutes. But other than the stress, I'm fine. Just been out for a bike ride, it was good to be out in the lovely summer rain to clear the mind!

Glad to hear a bit of self-care seems to have done the trick.

If you need to recount the whole story to get it off your chest... you can always hit me up.

[MadMojoMonkey]

In other news... my budget increased for the first time in 6 years, so that's nice.

I've been in a somewhat rapid development of demos mode for the past couple of weeks. Stuff that I've wanted to do for a long time that I now have the funds to do. It's pretty fun, and my ADD is loving all the projects to jump between.

E.g. Center of Mass is one of the worst named things in physics. It's always confusing to students that if you cut an object in half along a plane that passes through the center of mass, that both halves wont be the same mass. It's so confusing that they will stay after class and argue that it simply must be that way.

So I have 2 baseball bats now. One is brand new, and the other is cut in half at its center of mass. I can tape the 2 halves of bat together and show that they do indeed balance perfectly at that join, then take the tape off and put each half on a scale to show they differ in mass by about 100 g.


I'm updating the ballistic pendulum demo to take 2 independent measurements in 1 test run so we can compare our calculations and see whether they agree. A rare case of professors wanting a quantitative demo in the classroom.

I mounted a doll house door on a small stand so the professors can play with it while talking about torque without having to be standing halfway out of the classroom playing with the door to the hallway.

More, stuff, too. As well as replacing old equipment that has failed in recent months with shiny new stuffs.

I got my work laptop replaced with an amazing computer that is more powerful than my 6 year old gaming PC at home, now. Poor thing will barely be used to a fraction of its potential. My work desktop is scheduled to be replaced this year, too. It'll also probably be a beast compared to my home PC.

I mean... I've been wanting to replace my home PC for a couple years, now, but I keep spending my money on vacations, instead. Oh well.

[Poopadoop]

Fainting isn't that uncommon, it happens to a lot of people. It's usually just a temporary loss of blood pressure. If you pass out then come out of it again in a few seconds you're probably fine.

It's when someone passes out and then stays unconscious for a while that it starts to get hairy; that could be a stroke or a heart attack or other serious circulation issue.

Since the guy in the hotel isn't dead I'm assuming he just fainted.

[OngBonga]

I thought of you recently, Ong, as my uncle had a cardiac arrest in an Ibis when visiting his family and died. My cousin knew something was up and the staff opened the door to the room and were brilliant from that point on.

I hadn't realised until then how complicated it can be: a police officer had to officially call it, then wait for the coroner's office to collect him (since it was unusual circumstances). Otherwise, it would be the funeral director doing the collection, since ambulances won't take them. Neither is quick to collect.

It got me thinking there must be a procedure at every hotel and that's one perk of going with a chain hotel. I collapsed a few years ago in an independent Scottish hotel in the early hours and they were great, but clearly winging it.

I don't want to give you any worries about staying at chain hotels in the UK but I haven't had any specific training relating to medical emergencies. I have been fire trained, so I know the procedure for when there's a fire alarm, but not a medical emergency. I basically did wing it. Obviously I did what anyone does... call 999 and listen carefully to what they tell me and give them all the information they ask for. I pretty much constantly watched his breathing, certainly when he was unconscious (he was drifting in and out), made sure he was on his side, and basically prayed that he didn't stop breathing or be sick.

I think I handled it best I could under the circumstances, I didn't panic, but let's just say he'd have been better off if someone with basic first aid training happened on the scene.

[OngBonga]

We're pretty well trained when it comes to safeguarding. I guess we have more men trying to sneak underage girls into our hotels than we have medical emergencies.

We did have an incident recently. Some guy (mid 20s) turned up late with a teenage girl in her dressing gown, and paid cash. Somehow this didn't cause immediate alarm to the night porter on that day (I'd have insisted on card payment, saying we can't accept cash after 11pm) and this strange couple we're allowed to stay the night. In the morning, the guy showed up at reception and asked for a late check out, and he apparently had no cash left so had to use his card. Within minutes of that transaction, the hotel got a call and the manager was informed that the police were looking for this guy, the girl's parents had reported her missing and he was prime suspect. Armed cops turned up within a few more minutes and apprehended him in the car park.

I'm pretty sure the girls was there by choice, seemed like a case of this guy having too young a gf and her parents most certainly not approving of the relationship. Presumably the police response suggests her age is under 16.

So if someone runs off with your underage daughter, you'll get a fast response, just don't have a heart attack or anything.

[Poopadoop]

Some guy (mid 20s) turned up late with a teenage girl in her dressing gown, and paid cash. Somehow this didn't cause immediate alarm to the night porter on that day (I'd have insisted on card payment, saying we can't accept cash after 11pm) and this strange couple we're allowed to stay the night.

Lol, the night porter's all like "You need a place to commit statutory rape? Sure, come on in."

(I'd have insisted on card payment, saying we can't accept cash after 11pm)

I mean apart from card payment making it easier for the cops to track the guy, I would have asked the girl for proof of age.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I wonder how the police got that info. Did they just tell the CC company that they were looking for a pedo and that pedo might be using their credit card, and could the CC company please let them know of any activity on said card?

[Poopadoop]

I wonder how the police got that info. Did they just tell the CC company that they were looking for a pedo and that pedo might be using their credit card, and could the CC company please let them know of any activity on said card?

Pretty sure that's how it's done, yup.

The moral of the story is, if you go on the lam don't use your credit card.

[The Bean Counter]

I can't believe you don't have some procedures for certain medical issues, Ong. I suppose if somebody dies in their room, you call the manager in and the daytime cleaner would most likely be the first to find them. If they have a problem, call an ambulance.

Interesting point about the safeguarding. Do you get many Mr and Mrs Smith couples booking in for an afternoon of adultery? Or men bringing in prostitutes for the night?

[OngBonga]

I mean apart from card payment making it easier for the cops to track the guy, I would have asked the girl for proof of age.

It's not that simple. How can she prove her age? Oh I'll just take my passport out of my dressing gown pocket. The guy paying cash has to show ID, but the girl he's with does not, assuming he's claiming responsibility for her. He's paying, so it's him that has to show us ID. We have no reason to expect her to be carrying proof of age, and by asking for it we immediately create a situation where we're implying that without it they can't check in. As a blanket policy, this is problematic.

By asking her for ID, and not him, you're making an accusation and it's pretty obvious why you want to know her age. We're obliged to know who we have staying, but not literally everyone by name address and date of birth, just the name and address (or employer or ID number) of the person who booked the room, and how many adults/children/pets are with the payer.

The correct policy is to make them wait in the lobby while you "check the room" and then call the police, we're not supposed to check them in, but you'd only do this if you're pretty confident something is amiss. I don't know how many red flags that night porter needed, I count four (age, dressing gown, walk in paying cash, after 10pm) which should be enough to take some form of action. Taking his ID info, checking them in, then calling the police to ask for advice, this is probably what should have happened. That's the non-confrontational way of dealing with it, without raising their suspicion, rather than having them sitting in the lobby for however long it takes the police to arrive. That's probably what I do.

[OngBonga]

I wonder how the police got that info. Did they just tell the CC company that they were looking for a pedo and that pedo might be using their credit card, and could the CC company please let them know of any activity on said card?

Obviously I don't know, but my assumption is that the police have access to systems that will automatically tell them when a person-of-interest uses their card. No need to contact the CC company, probably just needs authorising internally by a big cheese cop.

It's the same as tracking a phone. They likely don't need to contact the service provider just to track a phone, they'll already have access.

[OngBonga]

I can't believe you don't have some procedures for certain medical issues, Ong. I suppose if somebody dies in their room, you call the manager in and the daytime cleaner would most likely be the first to find them. If they have a problem, call an ambulance.

Interesting point about the safeguarding. Do you get many Mr and Mrs Smith couples booking in for an afternoon of adultery? Or men bringing in prostitutes for the night?

Men with prostitutes is definitely something we have to deal with as a chain, though I'm not sure it's something we have at my hotel because it's way more common in cities. It's also very difficult to know if a man has hired a woman or is simply have an affair, the latter is none of our business and we're not to take a moral position on it. So even if we suspect that a man has hired a prostitute, it's very difficult to take any action.

I'm pretty sure we do have adulterous couples staying with us. An isolated countryside hotel on a main A-road is an ideal location for a sneaky rendezvous.

I think the problem with training staff for medical emergencies is it leaves us potentially liable. The fire training is simple enough that it's reasonable to hold me liable if I fuck that up, and it's also a legal requirement for us to be fire trained. It's clearly not a legal requirement for us to be medically trained, and it would likely be prohibitively expensive for a budget hotel to actually train their staff for such purposes. My manager does my fire training, who's going to do my medical training? That would have to be outsourced. The cost is ultimately met by the customer in the form of higher costs, and we're no longer a budget hotel.

[OngBonga]

If someone died in their room it would almost certainly be the manager who discovered it. There would likely be no reason for anyone to think anything is wrong until after 12pm when the key hasn't been handed in. At that point, the day manager will knock on the door and wait for a response. If there's no response, they enter the room. A housekeeper wouldn't do this, they would simply wait for the key to be handed in.

[OngBonga]

btw the wife of the dude who collapsed called us to let us know he's recovering in hospital and they were grateful for my help. I think I've got a card coming, they asked for my name. I've no idea what is wrong but presumably by the tone of his wife he's not in any trouble.

[OngBonga]

Oh and one more thing... it's hilarious how we have fire extinguishers all over the hotel, yet we're specifically told we're not to use one to fight a fire. My focus should 100% be on calling the fire brigade and ensuring the safety of guests outside the hotel in the refuge area. I do not evacuate the building, I do not go room to room knocking on doors and checking people have left, I do not fight fires, I simply grab the things I need (phone, list of guests, fire bag) and leave the building. I might go and help whoever is in room 1, that's the disabled room and is closest to the office and main exit, but other than that, guests are expected to leave when the fire alarm goes off, and frankly are pretty stupid if they do not.

[Poopadoop]

It's not that simple. How can she prove her age? Oh I'll just take my passport out of my dressing gown pocket. The guy paying cash has to show ID, but the girl he's with does not, assuming he's claiming responsibility for her. He's paying, so it's him that has to show us ID. We have no reason to expect her to be carrying proof of age, and by asking for it we immediately create a situation where we're implying that without it they can't check in. As a blanket policy, this is problematic.

It doesn't have to be a blanket policy to ID everyone. Most of your guests aren't teenage girls checking in in their dressing gown at nighttime.

By asking her for ID, and not him, you're making an accusation and it's pretty obvious why you want to know her age. We're obliged to know who we have staying, but not literally everyone by name address and date of birth, just the name and address (or employer or ID number) of the person who booked the room, and how many adults/children/pets are with the payer.

To me it's no different from ID'ing someone who's buying cigarettes. You obv. dont' ID people who are over 25, but anyone you suspect gets asked. In this case if she looks under 18, ID her.

The correct policy is to make them wait in the lobby while you "check the room" and then call the police, we're not supposed to check them in, but you'd only do this if you're pretty confident something is amiss. I don't know how many red flags that night porter needed, I count four (age, dressing gown, walk in paying cash, after 10pm) which should be enough to take some form of action. Taking his ID info, checking them in, then calling the police to ask for advice, this is probably what should have happened. That's the non-confrontational way of dealing with it, without raising their suspicion, rather than having them sitting in the lobby for however long it takes the police to arrive. That's probably what I do.

Yeah fine, well at least we agree you shouldn't just let them check in like anyone else and everything's peachy.

[Poopadoop]

btw the wife of the dude who collapsed called us to let us know he's recovering in hospital and they were grateful for my help. I think I've got a card coming, they asked for my name. I've no idea what is wrong but presumably by the tone of his wife he's not in any trouble.

Good news.

[Poopadoop]

Men with prostitutes is definitely something we have to deal with as a chain, though I'm not sure it's something we have at my hotel because it's way more common in cities. It's also very difficult to know if a man has hired a woman or is simply have an affair, the latter is none of our business and we're not to take a moral position on it. So even if we suspect that a man has hired a prostitute, it's very difficult to take any action.

I don't see how you're reasonably supposed to be able to tell if someone is a prostitute, and as such there's almost certainly no liability issues there. Letting in pedos might be different, but probably unlikely that anything would happen unless you were doing it routinely.

[OngBonga]

To me it's no different from ID'ing someone who's buying cigarettes. You obv. dont' ID people who are over 25, but anyone you suspect gets asked. In this case if she looks under 18, ID her.

There's a difference between telling a maybe or maybe not underage girl that she can't have ciggies, and can't stay the night where she was expecting to stay, essentially turfing her out onto the street. So it's not at all like selling ciggies. The implication is that if they can't provide ID on request, you don't provide the goods or service. You have to be responsible with that kind of thing. Of course you also have to be responsible when it comes to safeguarding, so there's a balance, and in this situation that balance wasn't struck.

I'm pretty sure we're not in any way liable if someone hires a prostitute on our premises. And even if I was absolutely certain it was what was happening, I'd ask them to leave but wouldn't call the police unless they refused to leave. Yes it's illegal, but it's also two consenting adults and it's not really something I morally oppose.

Checking in a suspected pedo and allowing them to spend the night with an underage girl, that's definitely a problem for the company, why is why we're trained on such matters. I don't know if the night porter can be held legally accountable, I'd have to be able to argue there were no obvious red flags, which in this case is absurd.

[OngBonga]

I mean, what is your plan if she can't provide ID? Turn them onto the street? Call the police? Once you've asked for ID you create a situation were it's a problem if that ID is not presented.

You ID a teenage girl with an older man because you have safeguarding concerns, so you can't seriously consider turning them onto the street to find another hotel or sleep in the car. So what if she hasn't got it? You're going to ask them to wait patiently in the lobby while the police arrive?

[Poopadoop]

There's a difference between telling a maybe or maybe not underage girl that she can't have ciggies, and can't stay the night where she was expecting to stay, essentially turfing her out onto the street.

Are you the only warm place to stay within 100 miles? I hope no-one tells the dinghy people about your 'no turfing' policy.

[Poopadoop]

I mean, what is your plan if she can't provide ID? Turn them onto the street? Call the police? Once you've asked for ID you create a situation were it's a problem if that ID is not presented.

You ID a teenage girl with an older man because you have safeguarding concerns, so you can't seriously consider turning them onto the street to find another hotel or sleep in the car. So what if she hasn't got it? You're going to ask them to wait patiently in the lobby while the police arrive?

Tell them to fuck off is my plan. What's the problem?

On the balance of probabilities. The teenage girl coming to a hotel late at night with a guy in his 20s. Close to 100% chance they're bonking. She's in her nightclothes or whatever you call it here ffs.

[Poopadoop]

I mean idk, if we lived in some culture where it was normal for a guy in his 20s to show up late at a hotel with a teenage girl and it were all innocent, like she's his kid sister who for some reason only wore nightclothes, then yeah let them in.

But in the real world, you need to use your head.

[Poopadoop]

I'm pretty sure we're not in any way liable if someone hires a prostitute on our premises. And even if I was absolutely certain it was what was happening, I'd ask them to leave but wouldn't call the police unless they refused to leave.

You mean if they wore a sign saying "I'm a prostitute"? Or if they started talking prices v. services at the desk?

Assuming neither of those things ever happen, ever, I'd be interested to know what you base you conclusion on, counsellor.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Just ask every female customer that walks into the lobby.
"Excuse me. Are you a prostitute?"

You know what... why be sexist. Men can be prostitutes, too.
Ask everyone.

EZ game

[MadMojoMonkey]

Ong was asking me what Beans accent is when I was visiting.
I can't really do accents, so I didn't have any good answer.

There's a white British guy who sometimes is on Star Talk whose accent is pretty close to Beans'.
The guy in the show's voice is deeper in pitch, which makes it hard for me to tell the line between that and the accent.
It's close.

[The Bean Counter]

What's the dude's name, Monk? I'm from a South Coast city, so it's southern - not posh, not rough.

I would have no chance at placing your accent. If it's no from the South, I've got no chance. To the trained ear, your accent is probably very different to the neighbouring state, in the same way mine is very different to Ong's. I've always imagined Ong as having a Dudley accent, even though the Kidderminster area is regular with a slight twang.

[oskar]

I think it's kind of interesting how you can almost tell what county brits are from by their accent, but Americans can be easily reduced to: NY accent, New Jersey, Milwaukee and Christopher Walken. Rural areas from Appalachia to New Mexico all sound like a hollywood actor impersonating a stereotypical stupid person according to my sources.

[OngBonga]

What's the dude's name, Monk? I'm from a South Coast city, so it's southern - not posh, not rough.

I would have no chance at placing your accent. If it's no from the South, I've got no chance. To the trained ear, your accent is probably very different to the neighbouring state, in the same way mine is very different to Ong's. I've always imagined Ong as having a Dudley accent, even though the Kidderminster area is regular with a slight twang.

I'm Brummie, not a Yamyam. We have similar accents but Brummies speak actual English, while Yamyams say stupid shit like "am ya" instead of "are you". Brummies are from Birmingham and Solihull, Yamyams from Dudley, Wolverhampton, Walsall, West Bromwich, Stourbridge and all the shitty little towns like Brierley Hill, Cradley Heath, industrial age shitholes.

I lived in Kidderminster for a long time though, it's just outside of the Yamyam range so it's not a strong accent and people for the most part make sense.

[OngBonga]

I think it's kind of interesting how you can almost tell what county brits are from by their accent, but Americans can be easily reduced to: NY accent, New Jersey, Milwaukee and Christopher Walken. Rural areas from Appalachia to New Mexico all sound like a hollywood actor impersonating a stereotypical stupid person according to my sources.

I've had someone distinguish my accent specifically as Solihull, as opposed Birmingham in general. That's 8 miles between town centres with nothing but heavily populated suburbs between.

And you should definitely be able to tell if someone is from Birmingham/Solihull as opposed the Black Country (Yamyam land, it's called the Black Country because of its industrial history, it's basically where the industrial revolution began).

[MadMojoMonkey]

Dude introduces himself at 1:30 and says something I can easily imagine coming out of Beans.


OK, I tagged Allison in and she agrees that on certain words, it sounds very close to Beans.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I think it's kind of interesting how you can almost tell what county brits are from by their accent, but Americans can be easily reduced to: NY accent, New Jersey, Milwaukee and Christopher Walken. Rural areas from Appalachia to New Mexico all sound like a hollywood actor impersonating a stereotypical stupid person according to my sources.

Hollywood has done a lot to homogenize midwest US accents.

History of TV is oddly relevant, here. The introduction of TV's was considered a very sketch idea to sell to people. Having someone talking to you in your home, but you can't talk back? Scandalous. A person there that is seemingly watching you, but that can't see you. Pervy! The marketing departments went to work on how to make the TV people seem as much as they "belonged in your living room" as they could. At the time, the midwest US accent was in use by the most people in the US. So Hollywood branded itself to put that accent as the default accent of "normal people" in movies and TV shows. The legacy persists. People going to Hollywood for acting jobs often take training to perfect their midwest accent.

An upshot is that any midwest accent that was pretty close to that Hollywood chosen default has kinda slowly merged with it. The spread of area in the US that basically has this same accent now is more broad because "nearby" accents drifted toward the TV accent.

Once you get outside of this large zone in the middle of the country, you see loads of regional accents that are identifiable. Minnesota / North Dakota have a certain long O sound that is present in the movie Fargo. You can kinda go around the edges of the US and identify a new accent every couple states or so, if not every state in some spots (New Jersey).

Re bold: No you are!

[The Bean Counter]

Gary O'Reilly: turns out he's an ex-professional footballer. Born and raised in London, so you're not far off. The town I grew up in is a lot like the London accent, with some added in-bred.

Ong, I could definitely tell the difference between you and yamyam, maybe even Solihull and Brummie. I lived in Selly Oak and Bournville for 8 years and had a group of friends from both the Black Country and Bham. The Black Country Museum is one of my favourites, mostly for the fish and chips cooked in beef dripping.

My ear is only tuned into three American accents: dumb Southern hillbilly, New Yorker and everybody else. I can usually distinguish Canadian: basically a softer version of American with words like aboot thrown in.

[Poopadoop]

I grew up in a town in Canada of about 60k, 50 miles from the US border. I always assumed we had the standard US-mid-west-minus-the-elongated-vowels-drawl accent.

But then once we started taking family trips to the mountains an hour to the west, I realised there was another accent there. I didn't bother to analyse it but I could definitely tell these people talked a bit differently.

Another time I traveled about 2/3 of the way to the US border and the common accent there was very much the stereotypical US country cowboy accent, and this while still in Canada. This difference was much starker compared to hometown vs. mountains.

Moved up to Edmonton about 6h north of where I grew up and discovered a subtly different accent.

Went to a conference in Eastern Canada and heard a voice which I immediately recognised as having an accent that came from my hometown.

Met a guy from Newfoundland during my PhD and he sounded half-Irish to me. This is I think the closest I've ever come to hearing a Canadian saying 'aboot.'

Moved to PA for a year and the accent was the standard midwest-US accent, like my hometown but with a drawl.

Moved to the UK and have since cme across a wide variety of accents. The Scottish accent was at first practically indistinguishable from a foreign language to me.

I think the biggest difference is not that accents don't vary in NA vs. the UK, but that the variance is much more pronounced here. You can still locate people fairly precisely to a town or area in NA, but you have to have a good ear to do it. In the UK the difference between a S England accent like Bean's and a Brummie accent like Ong's is much more pronounced than the difference between my hometown accent and a mountain one.

[OngBonga]

Moved up to Edmonton about 6h north of where I grew up and discovered a subtly different accent.

One of the YouTubers I watch is from Edmonton and to me he seemed to have a very typical Canadian accent, even saying "aboot" without smirking. Unless people are speaking in French with a Canadian accent I don't think I would be able to tell where in Canada someone is from.

It's funny how Canadians get mocked for saying "aboot" but it's not unique to Canada, they say it in Scotland and NE England (Newcastle region) too. I don't like the Scottish accent, it's so difficult to understand which means a conversation with a Scottish person tends to be intense as you really need to concentrate to decipher their sentences, the brain is working much harder than in a conversation with someone you easily understand. Newcastle isn't quite so difficult to understand but still can be hard work. Yamyam, I do understand their nonsense talk having grown up in the West Midlands but that too can be difficult to understand. For example, a Brummie would say "but it wasn't me" while a Yamyam would say "burry wore me", or "I don't want to" becomes "I day wanna". Utter fucking nonsense. You need to spend a year or two around this kind of linguistic twattery before it makes sense.

[MadMojoMonkey]

aboot is regional to the far North midwest, too. Minnesota ... Minnesoota to the locals. North Dakota ... Narth Dakoota.
Same oo vowel as in aboot.
Shows up in other words
Coat, boat, toaster -> coot boot tooster

Other vowels are shifted in that same region. Bag -> Beg
It's not quite the same vowel for Bag, but unless you're from there, it's hard to tell the difference between Bag and Beg.

[OngBonga]

Ong, I could definitely tell the difference between you and yamyam, maybe even Solihull and Brummie. I lived in Selly Oak and Bournville for 8 years and had a group of friends from both the Black Country and Bham. The Black Country Museum is one of my favourites, mostly for the fish and chips cooked in beef dripping.

There isn't much between Solihull and Brummie and you're doing very well if you can distinguish the two. Solihull, along with Sutton Coldfield, is the wealthiest region of the Midlands, and closer to fields, farms and horses, so people tend to have a slightly rural accent, and more educated, while Brummie is a bit more working class, a bit more urban, especially North of the city (Aston and Erdington region). So the distinction is there, but it's subtle.

You lived basically in the centre of Brum. Bourneville is quite nice in places iirc, some nice parks, Smelly Oak is a bit shit though, hence it's nickname Smelly Oak.

[OngBonga]

The Kiwi accent is funny. Some people can't distinguish between Kiwi and Aussie, but if you're not sure, just ask the person to say what chickens lay.

If they say "iggs" they're Kiwi.

If they say "fucking eggs" they're Aussie.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I don't have any trouble with Kiwi vs Aussie.

I have trouble with Kiwi vs. South African.

[Poopadoop]

Edmonton is a long way from the Aboot Center of N.A. I personally have never heard anyone say aboot except in the movie Fargo.

Presumably the Canadian speakers of aboot reside in southern Manitoba (n. of N. Dakota/Minnesota), and I've never been there or met anyone from there.

[OngBonga]

I don't have any trouble with Kiwi vs Aussie.

I have trouble with Kiwi vs. South African.

It's weird how there are similarities between the two but they're also really easy to tell apart, at least after a few minutes of conversation. The Saffers do sound like they say "iggs" instead of "eggs" though, so it's kind of easy to get them mixed up at first. Saffers don't sound like they could be Australian though, while Kiwis do, that's the best way to tell. Also, Kiwis tend to be more relaxed and easy going, largely due to the fact their homeland hasn't been subject to war for a very long time. The Saffers I've met that moved from South Africa to UK are all made of different stuff to the British, they're all strong, confident, hard as nails, don't take shit, I don't think I've ever met a Saffer beta-male, and the women are feisty too. It's a product of their environment. Life in South Africa is much, much harder than life in New Zealand.

[OngBonga]

Edmonton is a long way from the Aboot Center of N.A. I personally have never heard anyone say aboot except in the movie Fargo.

Presumably the Canadian speakers of aboot reside in southern Manitoba (n. of N. Dakota/Minnesota), and I've never been there or met anyone from there.

Maybe the English are just better at picking up on it than Canadians!

[Poopadoop]

I mean it's possible a Canadian about sounds a bit more 'oo-ey' that 'owy' to you, but I don't have any trouble telling the difference between those two sounds myself.

No-one has ever heard me say 'about' and gone 'haha you just said aboot.' But they do make fun of Canadians for saying aboot in front of me, even though i always say about myself. It'd be funny if it wasn't so fcking annoying.

[Poopadoop]

I mean that guy I knew from Newfoundland would say things like 'new' instead of 'no', so there's a good chance he would say aboot I guess.

[Poopadoop]

This has to be the World's Biggest Karen. Both literally and figuratively.

[OngBonga]

Didn't someone say that something like 2/3 of carbon emissions are household emissions?

That's bollocks. I'm reading that the emissions for United Airlines in 2019 (pre-covid) was roughly equal to that of the entire nation of Wales.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66287294

It's an article about a tier-5 football team flying to matches. Apparently most of these flights went from Manchester, which itself is a 50-odd mile drive from Wrexham.

If one airline can match a small western nation, then when someone says 2/3 of emissions are household, you can be sure someone's fiddling the numbers.

[Poopadoop]

Didn't someone say that something like 2/3 of carbon emissions are household emissions?

Yes, but then someone else pointed out that that figure includes all the extraneous emissions that relate to feeding clothing and everything else for individuals who live in households.

So, e.g., it's counting the emissions used to make the fertilizer that is used on the tomatoes that people in houses buy to eat from the supermarket. And the emissions used to run the factories that make the shoes that people in houses buy. Etc. etc.

[OngBonga]

Wouldn't it just be easier to say that 2/3 of emissions are due to humans having to stay alive? The other 1/3 is humans having fun.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The 2/3 number was scandalous in nature. It's not like the statement was untrue once you understand what it was actually saying - it's true. It's just not a helpful way to look at these issues as far as that premise of science that tells you to "State your question in a way that implies a plan of action." The implied plan of action in that stat is that household consumers have the power to affect change in 67% of GHG emissions. That is what's untrue.

So the statement isn't false, it just implies a plan of action that is not helpful.

[oskar]

I am just extremely confused by the public discourse about climate. Everyone is running around like headless chickens like "what are we going to do?" should we buy organic coffee from Guatemala? Should we recycle our plastics into cute dog sweaters...
The issue is ludicrously simple. We are in the predicament we're in because we pump and dig fossil fuels out of the earth, and we burn them. There is no scenario where you as an individual buy one less plastic bag and someone at the dig site blows a whistle to stop the dig. The very obvious way to get to the magnitude of transformation of the energy sector that we need, is to stop issuing drilling licenses immediately.

But here you have people like Joe Biden give big speeches how climate is a serious issue that needs serious action, while at the same time issuing new drilling licenses. Every drop of oil that is pumped out of the ground is going to get burned. This should be completely obvious.

[MadMojoMonkey]

When it comes to elections, Americans give lip service to the environment, but will absolutely lose their minds every time the price of gasoline increases. Politicians have to follow that lead to remain in power. Give lip service to the environment, but keep gas prices low.

[Poopadoop]

lols

[MadMojoMonkey]

Anyone else playing Baldur's Gate 3?

It's a great game. All the positive reviews were on point. It's not without its faults, but it's amazing.


I've just been running around, exploring and not worrying about breaking various sub-plots. It's my first playthrough, after all.

I just got to the titular city, Baldur's Gate, in-game.