If you ask for something, and they don't want to do it for whatever reason, they won't say no. They will say "I could do it, sure, no problem" and just never do it, nor explain why they don't want to do it!
And then if you don't understand that this actually meant "no" and push things further, they might eventually say "no", but they might become offended that you didn't understand them at first!
Please just say at least "yes" or "no". And if you're feeling specially nice, say "why no" which helps a lot the asker sometimes, though that's optional since people are entitled to their privacy. Just don't waste our poor foreigners' time with "bhlarmeh"!
Perhaps East Asia is a similar and more severe case of the same problem. But at least in their case it is so obvious that you already expect it.
The polar opposite apparently being Germans and the like.
Why we can't find more bibliography on this?
- www.reddit.com/r/AskUK/comments/ywt98p/why_are_british_people_so_indirect/ "Why are British people so indirect?". Now deleted body with some fixes, bullshit deletion procedure they have:The best comment:I've worked with people from all over the globe, but its when i work Work with British people it's always frustrating.From conversations to communicating what they would like me to do for them in notes. Never direct. Confusing and unclear. When I ask politely what they are asking me to do I get some patronising passive aggressive BS.Most times I don't even have to ask questions or clear things up. I try to make sense of everything, but sometimes I have to ask. In my job its important that I have the exact facts. I need 100% clarity from colleagues, so decisions I make don't come back to bite me on the ass. My clients don't have time for British behaviour like that. I don't have time for that.Why are Brits do indirect and passive aggressive in the workplace?
- www.facebook.com/soverybritish/posts/things-that-mean-no-yeah-could-do-im-easy-really-well-yes-and-no-well-see-maybe-/1497343080313575/
Things that mean "no" by "Very British Problems": - letstalk.voiceprint.global/talking-with-the-brits-the-problem-with-indirectness/ "Talking with the Brits - the problem with indirectness"
How I Faked Being American interview with Jack Barsky
. Source. The former East German spy undercover in the USA says:I had learned to speak English and write it as well as anybody, but I hadn't become an American culturally.My behavior was still very German.Having now learned the difference between the German style and the American style, I have been trying to adjust and soften the way I'm approaching things.Germans are in your face, they will tell you what they think even if you don't ask for it, and they will criticize you at any chance they get.And that was me.Americans will be a little more passive, sometimes passive aggressive, and they wrap everything, every piece of bad news, in some kind of a velvet cloth so it doesn't hurt that much.
It runs along quiet roads, rather than a mixture of roads and tracks like the National Cycle Network, making it more appropriate for road bikes.
TODO interactive online app? Ahh, those charities that try to make money by individual transactions... when they die, nothing will be left of all their work.
Edit: noticed that it is on by default on OpenStreetMaps web UI under the "Cycle Map" layer marked at "NB".
Bibliograpy:
- Losing Track by Channel 4 (1984), especially episode 5
- www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/mar/02/beeching-wrong-about-britains-railwaysToday the makeup of UK transport looks very different from the one envisaged by Dr Beeching. Rail passenger figures have almost doubled over the past 10 years; commuter trains are crammed; young people are deserting the car for the train; and Britain's railway bosses are struggling to meet soaring demands for seats. The legacy of Beeching - dug-up lines, sold-off track beds and demolished bridges - has only hindered plans to revitalise the network, revealing the dangers of having a single, inflexible vision when planning infrastructure."The crucial lesson to take from the Beeching anniversary is that you have to be flexible when planning transport infrastructure. Beeching was not," says Colin Divall, professor of rail history at York University. "Yes, many loss-making lines did need closing down, but nowhere near the number earmarked by Beeching, as we can now see with terrible hindsight."
They are not public in any meaningful modern sense, just like "public universities" in the United Kingdom: are public universities in the UK owned by the Government?.
- www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/16/private-schools-charitable-status-strip-benefits "Private schools don't act like charities, so let's strip them of the benefits"
They actually abolished the original legal requirement for those institutions to have free scholars as set out by their original charity school beginnings!!! WTF!
But the broadening of scope beyond the Church of England/medieval material was a good thing at least.
Startup lists:
Deep tech (have labs) unicorns:
- Oxford Nanopore Technologies
- Graphcore
- CMR Surgical
- Britishvolt
- Touchlight Genetics
Pinned article: Introduction to the OurBigBook Project
Welcome to the OurBigBook Project! Our goal is to create the perfect publishing platform for STEM subjects, and get university-level students to write the best free STEM tutorials ever.
Everyone is welcome to create an account and play with the site: ourbigbook.com/go/register. We belive that students themselves can write amazing tutorials, but teachers are welcome too. You can write about anything you want, it doesn't have to be STEM or even educational. Silly test content is very welcome and you won't be penalized in any way. Just keep it legal!
Intro to OurBigBook
. Source. We have two killer features:
- topics: topics group articles by different users with the same title, e.g. here is the topic for the "Fundamental Theorem of Calculus" ourbigbook.com/go/topic/fundamental-theorem-of-calculusArticles of different users are sorted by upvote within each article page. This feature is a bit like:
- a Wikipedia where each user can have their own version of each article
- a Q&A website like Stack Overflow, where multiple people can give their views on a given topic, and the best ones are sorted by upvote. Except you don't need to wait for someone to ask first, and any topic goes, no matter how narrow or broad
This feature makes it possible for readers to find better explanations of any topic created by other writers. And it allows writers to create an explanation in a place that readers might actually find it.
Figure 1. Screenshot of the "Derivative" topic page. View it live at: ourbigbook.com/go/topic/derivativeVideo 2. OurBigBook Web topics demo. Source. - local editing: you can store all your personal knowledge base content locally in a plaintext markup format that can be edited locally and published either:This way you can be sure that even if OurBigBook.com were to go down one day (which we have no plans to do as it is quite cheap to host!), your content will still be perfectly readable as a static site.
- to OurBigBook.com to get awesome multi-user features like topics and likes
- as HTML files to a static website, which you can host yourself for free on many external providers like GitHub Pages, and remain in full control
Figure 3. Visual Studio Code extension installation.
Figure 4. Visual Studio Code extension tree navigation.
Figure 5. Web editor. You can also edit articles on the Web editor without installing anything locally.Video 3. Edit locally and publish demo. Source. This shows editing OurBigBook Markup and publishing it using the Visual Studio Code extension.Video 4. OurBigBook Visual Studio Code extension editing and navigation demo. Source. 
- Infinitely deep tables of contents:
All our software is open source and hosted at: github.com/ourbigbook/ourbigbook
Further documentation can be found at: docs.ourbigbook.com
Feel free to reach our to us for any help or suggestions: docs.ourbigbook.com/#contact