Harry

On 11/04/2024 at 10:19, Spike said:

I really don’t care for this sort of shit. Anyone that thinks food is a static idea that can’t or shouldn’t change with the people, ingredients, location, and times is just a food fascist masturbating to themselves on the idea of what something ‘should be’, it’s the same as people that bully or shame food based on their class, culture, or religion. 

Yeah, American cafes butcher the flat white coffee, who gives a shit? It’s all just a variation, extrapolation, riff, modification of something else. You want food purity? Go eat some unprocessed grains and a hunk or burnt meat in a cave.

I do agree it sucks paying money for a shitty facsimile. 

There's a lot to be said for creative licence in cooking. I love doing things different and seeing what the result will be. 

It's always crystal palace that fuck us

A legend that was loved by all

On 29/01/2024 at 03:55, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Fully completed Mario Trippy @Mel81x and @Harry. Cracking game in fairness, and just in time as well.

Think I'll look to finish off Advance Wars Dark Conflict, as I was right nesr the end of that and stopped for some reason.

That sounds like me with Zelda Tears of the Kingdom.... Awesome game, I just lost momentum playing games for a couple of weeks with a busy work period, then couldn't wrap my head back around where I was in the plot, so started playing Wonder instead.

I've googled "Mario trippy"and been confused by the results... You're talking about Mario wonder? Or something unofficial?

4 hours ago, OrangeKhrush said:

MSNBC were living in the hope that Nickey Hayley would upset the odds,  they like her because she would be easy to defeat in national votes.   

Right now the helium on Trump is unstoppable with every Iowa district going his way.  new Hampshire may give more support to Hayley as she is a dem light and will appeal more to the upper class citizen and Florida I expect Trump to landslide there again.

Do you really not get why MSNBC (and every other for-profit 24/7 news network) would hype up the challengers in a contested primary race?

On 05/01/2024 at 06:23, Dr. Gonzo said:

For instance, if the idea of Disney casting a black woman as Ariel in the Little Mermaid upset anyone... I know 100% that they are a racist. It's a fucking mermaid, why does the skin colour matter? It doesn't, it's just people being pissed off something they remember from their childhood is now depicting Ariel as someone they see as "lesser" - and they see her as lesser because they're racist. So then they say things like "Disney is woke" and "go woke, go broke" because otherwise what they'd want to say and tweet would probably include the n word and get them widespread condemnation.

I think there is nuance to people's reactions to a casting decision like that based on what they perceive the motive/context to be.

Did Disney pick this actress regardless of the colour of her skin, or did they pick her because of it?

One side is happy with the decision as perceived to be aligning with their view of what racial equality looks like. The other side is angered because in some cases they are white supremicists but for others it will be because they don't believe a decision by a film company to hire an actress "because she was black"  as opposed to "regardless of whether she was black or white" aligns with their view of what racial equality looks like.

The issue at heart of that is less about whether or not people support racial equality but rather whether or not affirmative action is aligned with racial equality or not.

But the discourse is so reductive, and uncivil that a genuine discussion of that issue never plays out.

On 05/01/2024 at 05:24, Goku de la Boca said:

I am not a misogynist nor racist nor xenophonic yet I can see a certain agenda pushed against while males. Some people have lost the concept of "equal rights" and "entertainment" in order to push an agenda.

Alien, Rush Hour, etc, are examples of strong independent women or black protagonists that are not shoehorned in. So it's not that the public is racist or misogynist that we aren't supporting Disney movies, it's that we're tired of them making those agendas look worse and worse.

I think them hiring an activist as a director highlights that perfectly. It's fine to show progressive rights but Disney IMO are doing it the most obvious way possible that doesn't teach any moral rights.

What are your opinions?

What's an entertainment company to do in this increasingly polarised world that's wading deeper and deeper into culture wars issues than ever before?

Most likely they will continue to try to be as profitable as possible.

A company like Disney wants to maximise the appeal of its products to as wide of an audience as possible, so it's strongly not in their interests to put off a big chunk of potential viewers by being unnecessarily polarising. However it suits politicians and partisan media to discuss, magnify and inflame any divides and get people more and more passionate angry or excited about it.

And to a point it suits Disney if the plot/casting decision generates hype or attention and has more positive impact than negative on helping a film to achieve commercial success. But that will lead to them taking fairly safe positions like pro gun control, pro racial equality, etc. and any bigger risks if they are judged to have negatively impacted the films commercial impact are likely not to be repeated.

Seriously, wokeness in the entertainment industry is a very minor issue. My biggest concerns are about how shit movies are these days. Movies seem to be engineered assemblies of moments and scenes based on focus group feedback of What Viewers Want with a story written afterwards to tie it all together.  As opposed to a fluid story being turned into a film. 

33 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

We're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I'm afraid I could quite comfortably bet a month's wages on you being unable to find another penalty that's been awarded that you can convince me is a worse and more clear dive than that.

If penalties getting given like that becomes "par for the course" then I'm afraid I'll be going to WWE before the Premier League if I want to watch an actual sporting spectacle.

I feel most penalties awarded to Raheem Sterling would mirror and mostly exceed this one. That's from Liverpool, city and England matches. Gerrard and Coutinho had worse. Ronaldo, Robben, Ashley Young, to name a few.

It's obviously subjective what "worst dive" is but for me the worse ones are not only blatantly theatrical but also ones which are decisive in terms of the result, and those where there is next to no chance of scoring a goal. I.e. half a foot inside the box, near the byline, or like the Jota situation but where the player completely fluffs their first touch nearly out of play, leaving them with no chance to score. 

Jota is an idiot for not staying on his feet. I'm fairly confident he would have scored if he had.

1 hour ago, RandoEFC said:

It wasn't "clearly" at all. The only thing that's clear is that the contact isn't enough to knock him over which makes it a clear dive. It's up there with the worst I've ever seen and you lot would be better served just admitting it. Also the rule has never been that contact is automatically a foul. Players wrestle the fuck out of each other in midfield and stay on their feet and a foul often doesn't get given. Then they get their sock brushed in the penalty area and they throw themselves down.

Players from all teams do it so I'd say this whether it was a Liverpool player, Everton player or any player. It's an awful piece of cheating from Jota. That's just a factual statement to anyone rational and honest. But ultimately, the officials are the problem because they refuse to stop rewarding that cheating so why wouldn't Jota or anyone else do that again?

Like I said earlier, the Diaz type of cheating is commonplace in football now, where it actually is a foul and the contact is enough to affect the player in his attack but not to knock him over, the player goes down to make the referee's decision for him because refs don't give it if you don't go down for some reason even when it is a foul, that's unfortunately become commonplace in football and we've all had to make our peace with it.

If dives like the Jota one become commonplace like that then I'm afraid that's another nail in the coffin of top tier football for me. Nobody wants to use words like disgrace or cheating when it comes to their own team but I have absolutely no doubt that we could all agree on it being a joke of a penalty if we were shown a video of that being given in a match between Thailand and Algeria or something that none of us had a vested interest in.

The bold describes the MO of many players since 2005.

Yesterday's call is par for the course in that context, in terms of things that have been given as penalties for decades that I would not pay myself. And whilst there is VAR now, with there being clear contact between the elbow of the falling keeper and the ankle I think it's unrealistic to expect VAR to overturn that as being a clear and obvious error.

It's a typical situation of "yeah there was contact then the player went down, therefore penalty". In most cases where you hear a commentator making that argument the call was soft, the attacking player could have stayed up, and the player has been in control of how much contact to draw. 

A shit penalty of course but among the worst of all time seems a stretch.

8 hours ago, LFCMike said:

 

That would've been one for the ages

Jota played it up but the keepers left elbow pretty clearly knocked Jota's right ankle as he ran past... 

I'd prefer to see that not be paid, basically in 100% of all situations when a player is just playing for contact, but there's no way you'd overturn it given the contact 

https://twitter.com/Ayanalysis/status/1741959882348142797?t=LPy9Ewu_uMGqE2hnuAuZPw&s=19

16 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Yeah Nunez has easily improved a lot since last season. I think the only issue with him now is his inconsistent finishing.

He’s a good player, if he gets more clinical he’s a great player.

I'm trying to think of players who's finishing was as terrible as Nunez who suddenly in their third season with a club became clinical a.f. 

My football brain has eroded with disuse, but I can't think of many. 

2 hours ago, MUFC said:

Question for the Liverpool fans. Looking at the Firminho and Mane replacements. Nunez and Diaz, how would you rate them so far?

They've been short of what we hoped for. Diaz has more potential to become what we need than Nunez imo. 

10 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Yeah, the attack currently is a bit of a problem. Nunez is always threatening - but he's got the composure of a wet fart. His finishing is either brilliant or woeful, there's no in between. The coaching staff really needs to be working with him to improve his decision making in front of goal and to get himself a bit more consistency when he's in front of goal. He's a good striker, but not a great striker, so we need to find a way to get him to kick on in that regard and then I think we've got a hell of a striker on our hands.

Diaz was in pretty decent form until his dad got kidnapped. I think it's a bit understandable why he's maybe not looked so good on the pitch since that happened, honestly. But this rut he's in is pretty poor - he's got to work his way into better form or start getting used to spending more time on the bench.

Gakpo's a weird one, to me. I think he's partially struggling because he doesn't really have a set role in the side. Last season it looked like he'd fill in for the Firmino role of a deeper lying central striker. Then at the beginning of this season he was put into the midfield in a couple of matches (and honestly... was terrible - I think it's safe to say he's not a midfielder). He's had some matches out on flanks too. But I don't think he's really got the pace to play out wide for us with Klopp's system.

I think it's not just the attack that's lost form at an important time. Szobo has not been that great for us in recent league matches, imo.

We've got to hope these players can find some form sometime soon - because it's not too far from when we'll be losing Salah and Endo.

For me we've got a couple of Dirk Kuyt's and Mo Salah up front these days. Various types of hard toilets that all seem to have significant and different limitations to their games.

A shadow of the dangerous trio of Mane, Salah and Firmino that made anything seem possible.

Merry Christmas all.

Check out this wholesome a.f keyring I got from Santa this year. Best present ever!

Yeah I have to admit, the UN might well do something useful if there's a fracas between a couple of smaller countries in Africa, but when it comes to bigger conflicts it seems to be in a worse state of gridlock than the US Congress, and that's saying something

10 hours ago, Cicero said:

GRRM meets with his British publisher to discuss release date of Winds of Winter.

"he met with his British publisher to talk about The Winds of Winter. He doesn’t say anything about how close it is to being done, just that he talked about it. That conversation could have involved him handing over a manuscript, or it could have involved his publisher sitting across from Martin and weeping out of fear that the book will never be finished. We do not know."

https://usrtk.org/covid-19-origins/visual-timeline-proximal-origin/

Everyone should read this imo. Very well referenced portrayal of the key scientists involved in establishing the widespread view that covid was a naturally occurring virus not a lab leak.

On 21/11/2023 at 23:16, Mel81x said:

The simplest thing is to transfer them to one-drive via the web (yes, they can still track you if it's a company issued laptop). If you want to go the completely off-beat route then do this, if they are small, email them to yourself on your work laptop and then if you have a web interface for emails just open that at home and download them, there's no tracking there and it's really very hard to do anything even if there was. 

One piece of caution is that if there's an InTune server sitting anywhere close to the work you're doing (company IP, confidential data, etc) I'd just avoid copying and get someone else to mail them to me haha. Those things are very granular about file access and usage. I can't believe I am saying all this when I used to work with SecOps but realistically if its nothing serious you can just take it with you unless the company has some vested interest in it from a financial or IP standpoint.

This is right. I mean I have my fucking CV on my work laptop because it's the only computer I have at the moment. 

Surely I can take that with me when I leave!

17 hours ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Better prospects in your new role?

Only things I can think of from the top of my head are sending them from your work to personal email (I've done this myself for uni related work or data as needed) or put them on a USB stick if possible, neither of which are recommended as they can be tracked and blocked as you mentioned.

Yeah I think so. When company politics is getting to the point of leaving you jaded it's time to move on...

I know for sure USBs are blocked, as is Google drive and drop box... I think Microsoft OneDrive is still accessible through the work computers, but can they actually track what I would drag from my desktop into that?

Hey,

I'll be leaving my current job soon.

I'm wondering if it's possible to take a few files and documents with me when I leave, but it seems to have been blocked by the IT department.

Does anyone have smarts about this?

Obviously not anything sensitive but just a few things that would be useful to me to remember.. 

IT controls have come a long way in the last decade from when I changed jobs previously. Any ideas @Mel81x @nudge?

On 09/11/2023 at 23:39, Mel81x said:

The Switch version is actually really nice and the remake has been done with a lot of care. Honestly though Mario Wonder might be a better fit for something to just play slowly.

Agree. If you put link's awakening down for a week you'll plug it back in and end up trying to remember what you're meant to be doing.

I never played the original but it was a lovely game to play, and really highlights the genius of game design.

23 minutes ago, Bluebird Hewitt said:

I still haven't played Breath of the Wild and at present with uni, I'm mainly looking at shorter games to play when I can.

I'd recommend Mario Wonder if you're looking for shorter, punchier games. It'll still take a good while to finish with some incredibly hard levels but you don't forget the plot etc the way you can with a Zelda game.

Links awakening is good too though