[HN Gopher] Updating Gov.uk's crown
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Updating Gov.uk's crown
Author : dmarto
Score : 60 points
Date : 2024-02-20 17:51 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk)
| milliams wrote:
| It looks like Firefox caches the favicon more aggressively that I
| thought. Even a shift-refresh or explicitly clearing
| `blog.gov.uk` in the settings doesn't update it.
| dmarto wrote:
| Got curious, turns out their WordPress theme adds a wild
| <link rel="shortcut icon"
| href="https://insidegovuk.blog.gov.uk/wp-content/themes/gds-
| blogs/favicon.ico">
|
| at (or near) the bottom, and that is the old favicon.
| milliams wrote:
| Interesting, good spot. I might try to find a way to notify
| them, lest someone gets hanged for treason.
| gchq-7703 wrote:
| I'll pop them a message, assuming you haven't found their
| contact details already. :)
| milliams wrote:
| Nope, go for it.
| perihelions wrote:
| For cached majeste
| Digory wrote:
| A ridiculous transaction cost by modern standards, especially
| when multiplied by all HM's various enterprises.
|
| Except this kind of work spawned a nation of clerks and it has
| lasted a thousand years. Everybody has to think about the King's
| values, and implement them in their own little corner of the
| kingdom.
|
| If Joe Biden changes his heraldry, it doesn't change my post
| office experience one whit.
| bb123 wrote:
| Well while we're discussing needless costs associated with
| changes in leadership shall we talk about those hilariously
| over the top inaugurations you have every four years?
| rpmisms wrote:
| Those are less expensive and less dramatic than a typical NFL
| game. Rather understated, given our national culture.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| The real issue is how much of the cost is unwritten by
| private entities and what they might expect in return.
| rpmisms wrote:
| That's really unconcerning compared to the bulk of
| political spending. Also, the money spent on
| inaugurations is easily trackable; it comes out of a
| general fund. Absolutely pales in comparison to
| Congressional insider trading and stuff like Hunter Biden
| and Eric Trump do: making money off of _implied_
| considerations.
| ttymck wrote:
| Can you enumerate the costs of those inaugurations?
| irrational wrote:
| Well, Trump said there were a million people at his
| inauguration (I know, this was an absurd bald face lie). I
| don't know how much it costs to rent, set up and take down
| that many chairs, but I'm going to guess it was more than
| three fifty.
| javawizard wrote:
| At risk of picking nits: they don't put up a million
| chairs. I attended the 2012 inauguration and we all stood
| on the grass in the National Mall.
|
| (I agree with your overall point though. There were
| speaker towers arranged at intervals down the mall and
| plenty of crowd control involved in getting people to and
| from the event in the first place, none of which had to
| have been cheap.)
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Not on the same magnitude of cost but each time there's a new
| president, portraits in military installations and government
| offices are updated. Many states have their governor on their
| welcome signs on roads and at airports. Some cities even do it
| for their mayor. At least with the Monarchy, it's not a routine
| expense like it is with frequent elections.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Not on the same magnitude of cost but each time there's a
| new president, portraits in military installations and
| government offices are updated.
|
| Chain-of-command portraits serve a practical, if minor,
| function; yes, more of them change when a chief executive
| changes than anyone else, but they also change when a
| batallion commander or civilian agency director changes, for
| the same reason as for a chief executive.
|
| Heraldry of the monarch also serve a function, I suppose, but
| it is less like a chain of command photograph and more like
| the US national coat of arms (or the Great Seal, which has
| the former on the obverse); neither of which has changed
| substantially (there have been some rendering tweaks) since
| adopted by the Congress under the Articles of Confederation
| in 1782.
| Ericson2314 wrote:
| My apartment has a sign by the trash chute that says "Mayor
| Giuliani"
| b800h wrote:
| Everything whimsical must be destroyed to facilitate
| deterritorialisation!
| gumby wrote:
| You should read up on the mini-boom in the Japanese paper
| industry when Hirohito died.
|
| Now let's just hope Australia follows suit...by eliminating the
| crown entirely from government.
| resolutebat wrote:
| Context: Japanese dates count years from the accession of the
| current emperor (Reiwa 1 = 2019, Reiwa 2 = 2020, etc), so
| when the emperor changes, you need to renumber basically
| everything.
|
| Bonus: you also get confused foreigners who think "6/12/20"
| is 6 Dec 2020 or even 12 June 2020, instead of 20 Dec 2024
| (Reiwa 6). Fortunately the Japanese themselves are ISO-
| compliant and always use YYMMDD.
| orangepanda wrote:
| When/if an emperor reigns for over 100 years, would they
| shorten the format as-per-iso shorthand rules? That is,
| would the year Reiwa 106 also be written as 6/12/20 ?
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _A ridiculous transaction cost by modern standards,
| especially when multiplied by all HM 's various enterprises._
|
| One corporate rebranding every quarter century is really cheap,
| by modern standards.
| jameshart wrote:
| The average reign of a British monarch has been 25 years or
| so, since 1707, sure. But that's skewed by two major outliers
| - Victoria (63 years) and Elizabeth II (70 years). Between
| the other 11 unitary monarchs the average is more like 17
| years. Shorter turnovers are possible - four kings lasted 10
| years or less. Not sure you'd get great odds on Charles
| beating that spread.
| irrational wrote:
| Especially now that he has cancer.
| jltsiren wrote:
| On the average, people in developed countries die ~30 years
| after their parents. I don't see why royal families should
| be an exception.
| ascorbic wrote:
| I'm not sure what the costs of this will be, but it'll be tiny
| on the scale of things. It's all done by GDS in-house, and the
| design is shared across every government site and app. Before
| GDS, there were constant rebranding projects across every
| corner of the government and civil service. Now this is done
| with one update to a shared design system.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| The specific problem here is that Charles has done less than
| zero to endear himself to the public. So far his most obvious
| interactions have all been "Look at me! I'm king now!"
|
| For example - this silly little exercise. And his request that
| there should be portraits of him in school and public offices.
|
| This will have been filtered through courtiers saying "I'm
| really not convinced that's a good idea, your majesty." So
| these public proofs of his kingness seems very important to
| him.
|
| Meanwhile much of the country is starving or in debt, shops and
| businesses are closing, and infrastructure is crumbling.
|
| It's not a good look.
| Affric wrote:
| You didn't like his lukewarm delivery of the King's Speech or
| his Greek tie?
|
| Not entirely sure what he is meant to do.
|
| I am a committed republican but as far as Kings in a
| constitutional monarchy can go he's been pretty demonstrative
| against government policy.
| philip1209 wrote:
| > If Joe Biden changes his heraldry, it doesn't change my post
| office experience one whit.
|
| Tiny in comparison, but don't government offices feature a
| portrait of the president in the entryway?
| bombcar wrote:
| Based on https://uspsblog.com/the-history-behind-the-usps-logo/
| it seems the post office rebrands _more_ often than GOV.UK did,
| at least up until now ;)
| blibble wrote:
| I thought the choice of the Tudor Crown was an odd choice for him
| as the last Charles to wear it met an unpleasant end
|
| (St Edward's Crown just looks better too!)
| croisillon wrote:
| most people eventually meet an unpleasant end
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Most people don't get deposed from their throne and then have
| their head chopped off by Parliament.
| seydor wrote:
| and nothing of value was created
| quietbritishjim wrote:
| I suppose it's just what I grew up with, but the old crown seems
| really iconic to me, while the new one seems really dull and non
| descript. (I know they're both old but you know what I mean.)
| It's a pity the king didn't stick with the old one.
| frereubu wrote:
| Yeah, I think that's just because Elizabeth II reigned for such
| a long time. As they said in the post, hers was a change from
| the one her father used.
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| It's 2024, when is Britain going to get their shit together and
| get rid of these remnants of the middle age once and for all,
| it's just so weird that a so educated, wealthy, forward looking
| population can't just stop talking about queens, kings, baby
| kings, etc.
| harel wrote:
| Because remnants of the "middle age" are not too easy to find
| these days and when you have a good one you tend to hold on to
| it. I'm British and I don't want to see the monarchy disappear.
| bhickey wrote:
| Go for a walk in the City and you can see nearly two thousand
| years of British history.
|
| * London Wall
|
| * The Tower of London (to the east)
|
| * St. Paul's
|
| * Bunhill Fields (to the north)
|
| * The Bank of London
|
| * The Gherkin
|
| * The Guildhall
|
| * The Strand and Temple (to the west)
|
| The monarchy should disappear because keeping some posh
| people in gilded cages by virtue of birth is fundamentally
| incompatible with liberal democracy.
| throwaway_fjmr wrote:
| What's good about the royals?
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| I guess there is something good about them for the BBC, it
| has a endless stream of nonsense to publish
| Affric wrote:
| The British monarchy is a live institution and should be
| viewed as such. Republicans using the fact it's been around
| for over a thousand years (with a few hiccoughs) are not
| making the argument they think they are making.
| n1b0m wrote:
| Would this be the same "educated, wealthy, forward looking
| population" that voted for Brexit?
| lnxg33k1 wrote:
| Ah, I guess you're right then, my bad, long live the king
| then! :D
| irrational wrote:
| In the side by side view, I think the old crown is more easily
| recognizable. Maybe because it is wider while the newer one is
| more of a round shape and, at a glance, looks more like a ball.
| perihelions wrote:
| It'd be quite ironic if they A/B tested this.
| throwaway_fjmr wrote:
| Isn't it time to abolish the monarchy?
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(page generated 2024-02-20 23:01 UTC)