One of my engineering professors was totally convinced that hyperloop was “The Future is NOW” material.
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Whether trekking the halls of academia or out in the so-called real world avoiding one’s micro-managing department manager, enthusiasm is part and parcel of engineering. 
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I studied marine engineering at a community college, so kind of a halfway point between the two. He also believed that ancient superhumans built certain classical megastructures, and Turmeric was a literal cure-all, but my biggest ‘he should probably know better’ moment was when the chief engineer on one of my boats explained that sea level rise was just the displacement of all the ships in the water.
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Yet another belief that intentionally ignores the inventiveness and intelligence of the ancient peoples who designed and built the aqueducts and pyramids of south of the border – and don’t get me started on Asia and the Middle East. Couldn’t have been POC. Nope. As for the other stuff… 
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I understand that racism is often a component, but this was an Indian prof specifically talking about the temple complexes of his own region. He just didn’t think it could be done by humans with the contemporary equipment. It was more of an “Our ancestors were superhuman” argument.
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Did he have an explanation as to why (apparently) his superhuman ancestors were not super enough to survive up to now? And did he ever at least infer that he was one of those superhumans but not of the megastructure-building variety.
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Yikes. That’s something that would be easy to ballpark: the volume of ocean rise vs. displacement of all the ships in the world.
Of course, dong the math would probably confirm, to him, the existence of huge Atlantian mystery fleets.
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something, something about engineers and “knowing” stuff;
One of the most interesting points in the lecture is when the professor discusses common professions cranks often come from .
Turns out, a lot of them come from engineering disciplines (of the electrical or mechanical) variety, generally far moreso than from the natural sciences.The lecture itself doesn’t discuss why this is, but if I had to guess, engineers would be more likely to fall into the Dunning-Kruger effect – they know more physics than most people, but not enough to understand why their knowledge is really limited
https://www.chiefdelphi.com/t/analyzing-crank-physics-papers-and-the-engineers-pitfall/398561
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‘Our’ as in humanity’s ancestors. He thought that as a species we used to have mental and physical abilities that were lost to time. He’s got a few notions I consider a bit kooky, but there’s no supremacist angle here.
And science fiction books - the messages of which he didn’t understand and is still trying to make true (now we’re also in “Torment Nexus” territory) - also not understanding the social, political or technological issues that separate a thought experiment from reality.
But yeah, the whole “we’re living in the future now” delusion really explains a lot - the whole Mars thing, for example. He’s seemingly unaware of the knotty issues that would prevent passengers from surviving the trip, much less survive on Mars, and thus his total lack of interest in addressing any of those issues. (Though also possibly because they’re squishy biology/ecology problems, not straightforward, masculine engineering problems that can be solved with big phallic rockets, and as such they can’t possibly be significant issues.)
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We can only dream that it will take us from the centre of London to the centre of Birmingham, even that small goal is almost completely gone too.
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The Tories are openly ensuring that the incoming government will have to spend vast amounts of money cleaning up the mess and be unable to achieve anything of note.
The 5 year fixed parliamentary term was potentially a good idea but only if the government was actually competent and working for the country. On balance it probably should be repealed.
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Certain events over the past 8 years or so have actually put some serious meat on that thought. 
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I work in solar power, so I tell people I’m in the fusion branch of nuclear power. “For safety, we keep the reactor 150 million km from the nearest major city.”
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Agreed.
When they’re in Opposition the Tories will be crying (with their paymasters in the media in full support) that Labour isn’t improving the country fast enough, that taxes are too high and the country needs a dose of ‘real Conservatism’. First Past the Post means that things won’t need to change much to get them back in power - and we can be sure the next Tory government will be even further to the ideological right, especially as they will be trying to stop the nutters in Reform eating them alive.
The Fixed Term Parliament Act was only ever there as a sop to the LibDems when Cameron needed a coalition. It was never going to survive a majority government of either the Conservatives or Labour. We desperately need to get rid of the tyranny of Parliamentary Supremacy which lets governments run riot without restraint. It might have worked in the past when governments were ‘good chaps’, but the likes of Johnson and Sunak have shown the danger of not having real checks on the Executive.
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Proportional Representation is one of the answers here. It’s not a perfect solution because it allows an opening for smaller extreme parties to get a get a seat in parliament but it does generally lead to coalitions and more moderate government.
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I hate these gorram idiot companies with their stupid gimmicks!
Wahoo! A fancy unproven technology for really high-speed trains! When the real problem that needs to be solved first is a dedicated line that doesn’t have level crossing or share with slow freight. That’s been the situation for over 50 years.
The 539-kilometre run to Montreal would take a exactly a 3 hours and 59 minutes—a full hour better than the next fastest CN express—the press was told. The trains could get there quicker, but the high speeds achieved in testing were outlawed due to the roughly 300 level crossings on the route. All Turbos would be capped at 153 km/h—100 km/h slower than the top speed.
And it still sliced a meat truck on the first run.
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Sooooo…
A MagLev train/HyperLoop combo with added “plasma technology”, whatver that means.
Right.
How about building a dedicated high speed track and the infrastructure to go with it (like feeder lines) to make it work?
Operational speeds of 350 km/h with conventional, proven, reliable technology, no problem.
(And this is 10 years old, first thing that came up.)
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They wave their hands and talk about elevated or subterranean magnetic tubes, without exploring that cost. Hell, if we had a dedicated line between Montreal and Windsor, we could run pretty good off-the-shelf high-speed trains without their gimmick.
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