Squaredy

I have not suggested Mr Musk or any other entrepreneur is altruistic. What I said is that he has made his billions by providing something people want. If you have a minute look at the vacancies page on the SpaceX website. There are hundreds of current vacancies. He employs about 120,000 people and most are on six figure salaries. My view is that commerce is what ultimately creates wealth. Governments do not. The greatest achievement in history of taking people out of poverty is 800,000 in a quarter of a century. This happened in China this century and it was all down to commerce. Aided and abetted by government of course, but actually brought about by thousands of entrepreneurs. Whether you like Musk’s politics or not he has made a huge contribution to wealth, not just his own. I can’t comment on Grok as I don’t use it. I see a place for AI; though I also see challenges as with all the major developments of the last couple of hundred years. I do agree political divisions are getting deeper. And for some reason most people seem unable to discuss and debate these matters in a civil manner which I think is a loss to everyone. I suspect you and I would not agree what is driving all this though!

Total parasites! Get rid of them!

Yes quite a lot actually. I agree we are all being played to an extent. But also many of us are playing. When someone like Elon Musk creates a company and does very well (let’s remember it will do well only if he provides something many people are willing to pay for) and creates tens of thousands of extremely well paid jobs, is that playing us all?

Well he should have said that! He said “Millionaires and Billionaires”. Many millions of people in the UK are millionaires. And you need to remember that the reason for paying no Inheritance tax is that the assets are in trust and that instead the trust pays other taxes. Namely the trusts pay 6% tax every ten years. Not just on inheritance but potentially several times in an average lifetime. So as usual it is a myth that the country is awash with rich people paying no tax. My landlord is also worth billions and when he died and his son inherited the titles and estates the IHT bill was over £70 million.

What has happened to the Green party? I actually voted green once or twice many years ago. That makes me shudder now. At an event over the weekend Zack Polanski said in a speech that "...multi-millionaires and billionaires. They have taken our power, our wealth, our democracy and we are here to take it back." For some reason he forgot to mention that the top 1% of earners in the Uk pay currently a higher overall tax rate than at any time in history. Or to put it into figures the top 1% of earners pay currently 29% of all UK income tax. So I guess he mis-spoke and what he meant to say is "Thank God we still have quite a few super wealthy people left in the UK as we really would be screwed without them." Unless he really said what he meant in which case he and his party have become extremely dangerous to our cost of living, our public services and at the same time they could reasonably be accused of stirring up division and jealousy. Or have I missed something?

Your tractor has a fridge???

I still use my Rupert the Bear cookbook. Well, I still use one recipe from it, but the book sits there on my shelf still... It doesn't have the marmite recipe in though as far as I can recall...

Marmite cheese still not in our local Tesco sadly.

No indeed, but Trump has changed his tune on Chagos.

One thing he did in Davos apparently is meet with the Americans about Diego Garcia, which may be one reason the Chagos deal is now shelved.

What is the purpose of this?

Don’t forget to account for handling, positioning and storing logs, clean up and dealing with waste. Also remember that a proportion of the boards you cut will be rejects as they will be too bowed or have major knots hence weaknesses. Also as you have alluded to it is easy to totally overlook the part of the business that takes the longest - marketing and sales. If you spend two hours on production but then another four hours actually selling and dealing with the customers the equation is turned on its head.

Interesting, thank you.

I have for the first time used the angry emoji. But the trouble is will it be clear that I am reacting angrily to the subject not the fact that it was posted here. Or am I just over-analysing…?

It’s quite a scandal isn’t it? I went on a cruise in 2018 stopping in 7 different European countries and then Russia. With the exception of Russia every country automatically locked onto the best local signal. Automatic roaming. And as soon as we were back in the UK I was stuck with the useless network I was on (Tesco who use O2 I believe). I left Tesco mobile soon after and now get better reception, but still really poor at work. Even in the EU it was quite a battle to get high roaming charges removed if I remember correctly.

Yes, the most powerful signal where I am is from a mast in Portishead about 15 miles away. The tall trees are the problem. It was better years ago when I could see the river Severn from my main building; but since then the trees have grown up a lot and it looks to me like they might just grow some more!

To be honest I don’t mind making Musk a tiny bit richer. If he gets rich by providing something no-one else can I take my hat off to him. Contrast that to my current situation where I pay £100 a month to XLN for a barely usable copper line; and £18 to EE for a completely useless 5g router.

When I had my 4g antenna fitted a few years back the engineer spent a good couple of hours trying different locations for the antenna and eventually got download speeds of 6mb. But then the mast he pointed it at was permanently degraded and it has not worked since. There are several people nearby who have Starlink and all have really good things to say about it. And whereas the UK is reducing the number of masts for mobile phone signal, Starlink are continuing to ramp up their satellites. Another 11,000 going to be launched over the next few years apparently. And of course there is no contract. If it starts to decline in performance I can just back out. Whereas my stupid 4/5g mast I am still paying for until at least next year.

Yes I had a 4g antenna fitted, and it worked for a couple of months. When I complained they upgraded it to 5g but it hasn’t worked at all for over a year. You see it isn’t my home it is my work site and in the middle of a forest so trees get in the way for phone signal.

Yes all phones will eventually be VOIP. But the challenge I have is how to keep my landline number but get the connection via another supplier (Starlink). The copper wire to the property here is in poor condition but is not being upgraded to fibre so I don’t want to keep paying for a really poor connection.

Does anyone else not at all love the new operating system on their iPhone? It seems to make it almost impossible to quote a section of text on ArbTalk amongst other gripes. Did Apple not test it on ArbTalk forums…?

Maybe you can enlighten us. What did he say about the US? I did Google it but didn’t get much.

Well that is the six million dollar question, and at the end of the day you will need to work out what prices work for you. The only tip I can really give is to remember that what you mill will be very different from what builders merchants offer. Your timber will i guess be unseasoned. If it is the right species (larch, douglas fir) it will have natural durability. And you will be able to offer a bespoke service. Eg if the customer wants beams at 135mm x 60 you can help, whereas the builders merchants will not. Also I suggest always pricing up for the full length. The customer may ask for many different lengths, but you should charge for the length your logs are. And I haven’t mentioned that of course pricing should be by volume, except possibly for very thin or narrow pieces.

Ah yes I should have mentioned: no mobile phone signal at all. At least not enough to hold a conversation anyway.

He will get very bored with mine…