Look, I can already do that, sans medication.

From a metrology (measurement science) perspective I believe the real answer is none.

The SI system initially defined a lot of things relative to a number of physical standards, not least the standard kilogram. The original metre (possibly before it was SI) was defined relative to the Earth.

However, over time those units have been redefined in terms of a fundamental or observable aspects of the universe; the second is defined in terms of the number of periods of a Caesium oscillation. The metre is defined in terms of the second. The kilogram used to be defined by a physical block, and now is defined by the Planck constant.

By defining a unit in terms of counting or relative to other unit which are defined this way, you can avoid needing an absolute unit at all.

I'm not aware of any units in SI which could not be defined this way in the end, so as a result the answer would be none.

Can you give us a bit more detail on the hole vs the cross sections of the sticks? I take it they're not tight in there?

Bottom left: there must be a queen in one of the two left in the first column, so you can exclude the two squares adjacent to them.

In the same way, row 4 you have 3 squares remaining, so just as if it was one colour you can exclude the squares above and below the middle of the 3.

The rest proceeds from there.

One solution (which requires some leeway from your spouse) is to have 2 dishwashers. You take things from the clean one, and put them (dirty) into the dirty one, then periodically you put the dirty one on to wash, and work back the other way. You may need to move a few things that you didn't reuse but after a while that should stabilise.

Yes. Where a function is differentiable it must be continuous, but not necessarily the other way around.

You necessarily can't integrate over a discontinuity, because (normal) calculus is only defined for continuous, differentiable functions.

For example, you can integrate the general form of 1/x, and get ln|x|, but only for domains excluding x=0.

To integrate using normal (definite/Riemann) integration, you have to exclude discontinuities from the integral. Usually by dividing the integral up into domains over each of which the function is differentiable (and thus also continuous).

There are extensions to allow integration over functions that are not differentiable, or even not continuous - for example Ito calculus for stochastic processes, Young's integrals etc etc.

Inflation index 9.16x (https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator), so:

10p -> 92p
12p -> £1.10
13p -> £1.19
15p -> £1.36

They are £3/100g for a smaller 40g bar which would work out to £2.19 for 73g. (I have seen Hershey's and Cream 90g bars for £1.60 or £1.25)

£2.19 is $2.79, so that chocolate flavoured candy is about 10% cheaper in the UK (UK price includes all taxes).

According to this calculator (https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/), it looks like inflation would have put that bar at about $1 in 1983, making you between 54 and 60 years old if the change is entirely down to inflation.

Some observations in pursuit of a solution:

1. The corners around a point between 4 tiles must all match. There are 9 points like this in the puzzle, which will be the centre of each of 9 diamonds.

2. Beyond the 9 diamonds there are 12 half diamonds around the edge, and then 4 corners which don't need to match anything.

3. Since each tile has the 4 colours, the 9 diamonds must form a pattern around the 4 central tiles; e.g. if the centre is red, none of the 8 diamonds around it will be. It is possible that this pattern is a mirror, so the 4 centre tiles are mirrors of each other (abcd, badc, dcba, etc).

4. A simple way to divide the solutions would be to each take a centre colour, and only try solutions with your centre colour. You can label the other points clockwise etc if needed.

Now we need the numbers of each type:

Yrgb 6.
Ybrg 3.
Ygrb 3.
Ygbr 2.
Yrgb 1.
Ybgr 1.

1. Note that the closest 2 identical tiles can be is diagonal from each other. So the yrgb tiles may be a constraints as they are close to saturation.

2. To fit the yrgb as close as checkerboard, the gaps would have to be filled between any 2 diagonal pairs with a tile in the opposite direction - ybgr. But we only have 1 of those. So we can't have any diagonal pairs of yrgb (you'd need 2 ybgr for any such diagonal pairs).

3. But there is no way to fit 6 tiles such that they don't touch on corners in a 4x4 grid, so:

there is no matching corner solution.

nine shareholders, which include the Chinese and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds as well as Canadian and UK pension funds. (From the article)

During Macquarie’s ownership from 2006 to 2017, Thames paid its investors dividends of 2.7 billion pounds ($3.45 billion) while its debt pile tripled to almost 11 billion pounds. Thames Water’s biggest shareholder is Canadian pension fund Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, at 32%. Britain’s Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) owns 20%. An Abu Dhabi-based fund, another Canadian fund, Britain’s BT pension fund Hermes and China Investment Corp all have less than 10%. (From https://www.brecorder.com/news/40296346/thames-water-how-did-it-get-to-the-brink)

(Not financial advice)

Please talk to your bank, especially if you have any debts. They may be able to give you advice, overdraft information, help you budget etc. They have a duty of care especially toward financially vulnerable customers like you.

A true politician.

Born in the country, matures in Oxford, then fucks off to London till it's pissed itself out to sea after getting fucked up in the East End.

... and vote accordingly.

Here's ChatGPT's answer to "Explain to me how Siri hears me say "hey Siri" if it isn't constantly listening to my conversations?":

Siri uses a feature called "always-on" or "hands-free" mode, which allows the digital assistant to detect when someone says "Hey Siri" without having to constantly listen to everything that is being said.

Here's how it works:

When you first set up Siri on your device, the feature will ask for permission to use the device's microphone. Once you grant permission, Siri will begin to listen for the "Hey Siri" phrase. However, it doesn't listen to everything you say. Instead, it uses a low-power state called "deep sleep" or "background processing" to conserve battery life and system resources.

In this state, Siri listens for the "Hey Siri" trigger phrase using a special algorithm that only activates the microphone when it detects that you're saying the phrase. This algorithm is designed to detect the unique sound patterns of your voice, so it can recognize your voice and ignore other people's voices.

Once Siri detects the "Hey Siri" phrase, it wakes up and starts processing your voice command. If you don't say anything else after a few seconds, Siri will go back to its low-power state until it hears the trigger phrase again.

So, in short, Siri isn't constantly listening to your conversations. It only listens for the "Hey Siri" phrase, and even then, it only activates the microphone when it detects that you're saying it.

I asked it to explain it like I'm 5:

Sure, I can explain it in a simpler way!

Siri is like a pet dog that sleeps most of the time, but wakes up when it hears its name. Just like how your dog knows its name, Siri knows when you say "Hey Siri". But Siri is a really smart dog, it only listens for your voice and doesn't pay attention to other people's voices. So when you say "Hey Siri", Siri wakes up and listens to what you want to say. But if you don't say anything, Siri goes back to sleep until you say "Hey Siri" again.

Vase - Varze

Peugeot - Perzho

Scone - Scon

Yoghurt - Yogg-ut

J - Jay

Porsche - Twat

Zebra - Stripy shite

Ok, let's straighten up a few things:

1. The transition for non USD Libors (GBP, CHF, JPY, EUR) is Jan 2022. For USD it's July 2023 (which is why they're pointing out that most outstanding contracts expire before then)
   
2. SOFR is already in reasonably heavy use, especially the last few weeks. Even so, there is still 18 months to the transition for USD, so there is some time.
   
3. The choice of SOFR is a compromise - it's more volatile day to day than Libor, true, but that does get averaged out for usual terms of 1/3/6 months. On the plus side SOFR is driven by (a lot of) transactions rather than expert judgement, which is intended to counter the issues seen in Libor.
   
4. Transition is happening for other currencies first, so issues should be generally ironed out before USD does so.
   
5. SOFR uses transactions in a wider liquidity pool than just large banks, so it will be more (rather than less) representative of the rates paid by smaller entities.
   
6. There are legal things in place to catch contracts that are hard or impossible to transition.
   
7. As Libor was a forward-looking rate rather than a backward-looking one like SOFR, there is likely to be a gradual divergence in the market between retail/commercial arrangements referencing BSBY, Term SOFR or AMERIBOR, and interbank trades referencing SOFR. As yet, though, that hasn't really happened, and the pressure is still from the regulators to move to SOFR, so a lot of bond issuances have been done against SOFR already.

Meat goes off

Ok, let's straighten up a few things:

1. The transition for non USD Libors (GBP, CHF, JPY, EUR) is Jan 2022. For USD it's July 2023 (which is why they're pointing out that most outstanding contracts expire before then)
   
2. SOFR is already in reasonably heavy use, especially the last few weeks. Even so, there is still 18 months to the transition for USD, so there is some time.
   
3. The choice of SOFR is a compromise - it's more volatile day to day than Libor, true, but that does get averaged out for usual terms of 1/3/6 months. On the plus side SOFR is driven by (a lot of) transactions rather than expert judgement, which is intended to counter the issues seen in Libor.
   
4. Transition is happening for other currencies first, so issues should be generally ironed out before USD does so.
   
5. SOFR uses transactions in a wider liquidity pool than just large banks, so it will be more (rather than less) representative of the rates paid by smaller entities.
   
6. There are legal things in place to catch contracts that are hard or impossible to transition.
   
7. As Libor was a forward-looking rate rather than a backward-looking one like SOFR, there is likely to be a gradual divergence in the market between retail/commercial arrangements referencing BSBY, Term SOFR or AMERIBOR, and interbank trades referencing SOFR. As yet, though, that hasn't really happened, and the pressure is still from the regulators to move to SOFR, so a lot of bond issuances have been done against SOFR already.

Indolent Cannibals in Polyworld: https://youtu.be/_m97_kL4ox0?t=1826

There are forward looking rates, that's what the mention of 'term SOFR' refers to. It's far less open to manipulation than Libor, as the term rates are set using SOFR futures.

There is a tail risk that SOFR futures volumes fall off, or that they don't trade enough over certain dates, but that seems pretty unlikely for now.

Risk free refers really to the notion of r in traditional textbooks, and in this instance it's closer to the risk free rate than Libor was as the credit element is largely removed.

So if people can opt to get a heat pump fitted in addition to their boiler using the 5k grant... win win, right?

I would aim to preempt the usual questions:

1. What is a bitcoin 
2. What is mining 
3. What are smart contracts 
4. Are you a zillionaire then 
5. Is it legal 
6. Isn't it really bad for the environment 
7. How do I buy some and get rich 
8. Can you send me some 
9. My friend bought some off some guy 

Personally I would be inclined to get 2 or 3 volunteers to try to mine a block - kids with calculators trying to find a number which matches some pattern when you do something to it. Get them going at the beginning. Then go through a few slides or pictures knocking off a few of those burning questions at a time.

I too await nervously

So basically now you would need to launder the money. Your main gotos will be tumblers, bitcoin exchanges, NFTs.

You need to simultaneously move fast, but not leave yourself open.

It would be perhaps too obvious to put large amount through from a large wallet - this is the kind of thing that is noticeable by any automated systems.

So step 1 would be to tx the amount into a large number of addresses, so that they are harder to blacklist and attract less attention, ideally in random quantities so that there's not a recognisable amount.

Then you need to pick a route; tumbling, buying NFTs to sell later, fx into another currency, etc etc. Obviously still not with anything that ties you to the tx, like using your own account on an exchange. It might seem lower risk to use multiple routes, and that's certainly more likely to reach some destination, but more routes leave more opportunities to be tracked by one of the routes.

Suppose you tumble them into cleaner accounts (I mean, it might be possible to work out that your money came from a tumbler, so moderately dodgy). From here you are free of the blacklisting systems, because the addresses are no longer linked back to the original address. But you still don't have a plausible legal source of the funds.

If you could participate in some sort of online lottery or casino, that might work; put enough money on the roulette table and you get the money back on average (minus 2/37ths) and you only have to have a plausible explanation for the one ticket that won - you could put some legal money in at the same time and have a very believable narrative.

Alternatively buy and sell NFTs, again ideally buying thousands of cheap ones which could each turn out to be rare, though with the tx being public it's harder to pretend you bought them with legally sourced funds.

Ultimately for large amounts of money, the next step is to try to get those funds into one of the tax havens - Cayman etc - though without some questionable contacts you'll struggle to convince yourself that someone really is a trustworthy representative of an institution in such a place and not just some fraudulent scammer about to run away with it all.

I like to think of whoever got 22m in mining fees one day and then decided to largely give it back. I can only guess that they were traceable, and wanted to keep some of the money and be left in peace, not having the exchange rattling their door and chasing them about. This is the thing you would be attempting to circumvent; not just whether you could get the money out, but whether you can rest easy later.

Let's run some numbers.

Suppose you earn £35k (approx median wage in the South East), and are still repaying student loans, yielding you about £2.2k/month. You want to save a 10% deposit in 5 years, and I've picked out a £125k studio in Dartford, a walk from the station, so you have access to the bright lights of North Kent, and the London job market.

If we assume the house prices rise 5% year on year, then that house will be about 160 by the time you get there, so our 10% figure will be 16k. 8k / 55 months (you won't save in Decembers) demands saving about £150 / month.

Now that is a sizeable chunk of your salary, especially if you're paying £800 / month in rent on a studio already, spending £400 / month on food, £130 / month on a travel card, £100 / month energy leaving you £770 to pay for everything else (including savings).

If you can do without a car then you can save the £50 insurance, £20 tax, £50 service and maintenance a month which would almost cover the saving towards a deposit, and if you would need to buy on finance it saves you the £200-300 you would be spending on that.

So without a car, you can have something like £600 a month after your savings for general living, but just owning a car on finance will cut that to £200-300, which is rubbish if you're single.

In London, you'd be on £35k from fairly early on in IT, certainly as a graduate.

But that all stops working if you're earning more like £25k where you take home £1700, where even without a car you've got about £25 a week to buy, what 1 round of drinks?

The keys are inevitably to share those costs with someone else...