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A genuinely decent man. There aren't that many in the world.

Australia be like

Benitez gone apparently. Good job we didn't just sell James Rodriguez and Lucas Digne for him, or sack the Director of Football, medical team and scouting team for him either. God I fucking loathe Everton.

If he gets them relegated, he is their best ever manager imo

Superb

Back in the day, yes. The maximum weight used to be a lot more restricted, which even made it difficult for taller drivers to get a decent drive. Nico Rosberg also stopped cycling before the 2016 season, where he finally beat Lewis Hamilton, so he wouldn't gain too many leg muscles an additional weight. Now it's a bit more relaxed. But F1 drivers still need to be extremely physically fit, due to high G-Forces while still operating a racing car at 320ish km/h.

Very good post, thanks. I don't get F1 as a spectator sport but I do appreciate it's technical aspects and high stakes.

I'd say it's mostly because in situations where two or more cars are similar, the driver still makes THE difference, and it's extremely exciting to watch. Best drivers tend to push the car to the very limit when it's needed, and are able to shave off a few thousandths or hundredths per lap when it truly matters, even when it seems impossible. So while even the best driver wouldn't win titles without a very strong car, just the car isn't enough, either - you need someone to drive it flawlessly week in, week out, on different tracks under different weather conditions. The other, even simpler reason is probably because the driver is the one who actually drives the car and that's what the fans see - they do not see the effort that is put into building, developing, repairing and upgrading the car, nor do they see hundreds of people behind it. I also believe the glorification of the drivers is strongly linked to racing conditions a few decades ago, when motorsport was extremely unsafe and by far more deadly, so racing drivers were seen as some sort of "gladiators" who braved death every weekend, and that image is branded into the psyche of the fans. Also, some fans simply have little interest in technical aspects of the sport and just support a specific driver, for whatever reason...

Red Notice Good fun, plenty of action and Ryan Reynolds being his usual funny self. 7/10

The car is the most important part of the sport, with the driver and team effort (setups, pit stops, race strategies, etc) making the difference when the gaps between cars are small. F1 are not a spec series - all cars are designed around a specific set of technical regulations that might seem quite restrictive (engine displacement, car weight, aerodynamic parts, etc.), but in reality they still allow enough creative freedom for designers and engineers to play with, and every team pushes the limits of the regulations constantly to find something that gives them even a marginal advantage. Visually, the cars all look similar, but the actual differences are extreme enough that one team can't even copy another teams parts as it likely wouldn't work with their design.

Here, "true colour" image on the left with HSO colour mapping after assigning RGB colours to narrowband channels (Hydrogen as red, Sulfur as green, and Oxygen as blue). That image then gets processed additionally to balance the colours and get the details out, resulting in the image on the right.

It's true that Webb is primarily an infrared telescope, but it's also worth noting that the original images Hubble takes are also very different from the final pictures that get published - the original ones are narrowband images of different wavelengths in black and white, and colours are just added and manipulated during image processing (and they aren't accurate representation of the real image in visible light). Assignment of colours to different narrowband images is even called Hubble Palette because it popularised the technique. So the original image of the Pillars of Creation above would have looked something like this: I'm sure they'll do plenty of image processing to the infrared Webb images too, and we'll still get some absolutely fantastic views. The important part for the telescope is the scientific data it gathers, after all

2022 M-Sport Ford Puma Hybrid Rally1 livery! She's a beauty.

Awesome pictures... From what I am reading the new Webb telescope will not be able to take pictures like this as it only takes pictures in Infrared compared to 4K or Visible...

"The attempt to assassinate the best athlete in the world has ended. 50 bullets in Novak's chest. See you in Paris." - Djokovic's father.

It gets increasingly more difficult to think of ways in which the board can make themselves and the club look stupider than they already have but I think by bringing back Martinez and then having to sack him when he fails again, they've cracked it. It could go well with him having had a bit more experience under his belt. Maybe. I guess. Probably not though.

Everton hire a manager who was toxic with their fans from the start, allow him full control, sack their medical head at his behest, sack their DOF and sell one of their better performers and first choice left back as well as letting him buy two other full backs, sack him three days later and now the rumour is that they are trying to get back the man Moshiri originally sacked when he took over. That's pretty shambolic.

If I'm Graham Potter, I'd see absolutely nothing appealing about joining Everton. Bigger club than Brighton, 100% yes. Better team/squad? Hmm, probably not. Better financially equipped? Nope, not anymore by the looks of it. He'll feel he's building something decent at Brighton and if he is to leave, it's got to be for something a bit more worthwhile than Everton you'd think. Just pure, hard facts. Sounds massively harsh towards Everton Football Club and who knows, I might be wrong and he might relish the challenge but I don't see it as a realistic appointment myself. Sean Dyche would be a good appointment for me. He won't leave Burnley mid season I'm sure but that's someone who I feel would go a long way to uniting the club. I think as a man manager, players like him and would bust a gut for him, especially after having Ancelotti and Benitez. Players seem to have a lot of good things to say about Dyche as a person. I like his character. Might not be the most glamorous name but for where Everton are at this moment in time, I think he'd be a brilliant candidate and he deserves a chance somewhere bigger.

Don’t think it matters who the next manager is, at least just not yet. Dunno about that, Everton are about as abject as I remember them pre-Moyes. They’re just richer now. But Kenwright got one of the biggest clubs in the country content with losing its ambition almost entirely. I think that’s an impressively bad job.

Ah he was doing such a grand job.

Kabbadi, the sport where players known as raiders enter opposition half to touch their defender(s) and run back without getting caught. The sport evolved in Punjab region from the practice of tribes where they raided into territories of other tribes to steal their cattles.

There are countless examples, Dalglish, Solskjaer, Shakespeare at Leicester. Our boardroom is absolutely impossible to predict though so who knows what will happen.

The wee smiling gnome is available?

Some hate it but I love it when players have Blubbering sunflowers batting stances. I think it brings personality to the game, without it being stupid shit like sledging or having a sook

Burnsy let his hair down, that means he is getting serious

Let’s be real: Everton’s fall from grace has fuck all to do with Leicester & happened well before Moshiri was ever involved in buying the club. Kenwright did a fantastic job lowering expectations and getting one of the big clubs in the country alright with falling behind. But Moshiri definitely has no clue what he’s doing. The decision to sack Brands now looks even more mental. They’ve spent money but they’ve obviously got no short term plan or long term plan. They’ve got a few decent players, but I think it’s a mess of a squad. I don’t think any manager clears up the mess in 4-5 months. They need a long term plan, which probably means hiring a DOF and actually listening to him.

Everton football club getting taken the piss out of by Leicester ffs. Don't let this happen.

Moshiri gets nowhere near the shit he should. Has he got mates in the media or something? I don't see how he's any better than GSB.

View of it from the ground....

Just read about this. Scary shit. Those satelite images are terrifying and fascinating at the same time. I hope there won't be too many casualties from the Tsunamis.

Recently finished watching White Wall, a Swedish-Finnish mystery thriller sci-fi series. Loved it, and couldn't stop watching it. Very suspenseful, eery and atmospheric, and the story is pretty novel and unique. Hopefully there will be Season 2... https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9648870/

By the same token this can piss off a lot of Iranians that aren't Persian, because technically if you're Iranian you're not necessarily Persian. There's Azeris, Arabs, Armenians, Balochis, Gilakis, Loris, Kurds, etc... - I think Persians make up about 60%-ish of the country. So some people don't really like it when they're called "Persian" if they're from Iran - because they view it as sort of ignoring their culture. The rise of Zoroastrianism is sort of a pushback of the Islamic Republic & their brand of nationalism as you say - because it's the "native" religion to Iran & the oldest monotheistic religion and some people view Islam as the "religion of the invaders" with the Arab conquests. I think it's more common for Persian Iranians to be into this revival of Zoroastrianism, but probably some of the other Iranic people in the country would fall into that - Azeris are Turkic people, so they came to the region after it was Islamic already and I don't think would have the same connection to Zoroastrianism - meanwhile the Arabs of Iran, similarly, would find their roots in the country most likely tied to the Arab conquest... so while they're very much Iranian... I wouldn't say they have any ties to Zorostrianism. For a lot of people, myself included, this sort of revival is more symbolic than being an actual believer of the religion. Iran's diaspora is increasingly atheist and there are more and more atheists in Iran (probably because of dissolution in living in a religious authoritarian regime and probably because religious conflict has led to a lot of bad shit happening in both Iran & the region generally). But it, and Christianity, are also some of the fastest growing religions in the country as well. But yeah, it's an absolute shame what happened to Iran.... although if the UK & US never removed their democracy in the 50s, and their puppet dictator was never ousted in 1979... I might not have ever been born. So from a selfish perspective, it's not so bad. But from a non-selfish perspective... me existing probably wasn't worth the suffering of 82m+ people

I bless the strains down in Aaaaafrica.

https://www.axios.com/cdc-omicron-death-delta-variant-covid-959f1e3a-b09c-4d31-820c-90071f8e7a4f.html Fantastic news, and another confirmation for initial data from South Africa. 53% reduction in risk of hospitalisation, 70% reduction in length of hospitalisation, 74% reduction in risk for ICU, and 91% reduction in risk of death. Large study sample with varied demographics, too. Over 52000 Omicron patients in the study, and none needed mechanical ventilation!

He’s filled out forms wrong, if it was John Smith he’d have been sent back ages ago. There could be other stuff going on but tbh he’s been some what of a figure for the mad anti vaxxers on my newsfeed so seeing them go from celebrating his victory to this now is worth it for the meltdowns…

Of all the Astronomy photos over the years, I have seen this is one of my favourites next to the Pillars of Creation. The Butterfly Nebula from Hubble Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble, HLA; Reprocessing & Copyright: Jesús M.Vargas & Maritxu Poyal Pillars of Creation Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI / AURA)

Covid has finally claimed me. Aching all over, little cough, freezing cold, yet boiling hot. Pray for me