Recent posts

#1

Off the Record / Re: Dead Pool 2026

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 02:50:12 PM

RIP Sir Garfield Sobers, the West Indian cricketer most famous for hitting six sixes in an over. Nice obit in the Times:
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/obituaries/article/sir-garfield-sobers-obituary-crickets-greatest-all-rounder-cmjjnjrhz

Struck by this paragraph:

The flip side was a love of gambling, especially on horses, which, coupled with his career being before Test cricketers were properly remunerated or sponsored, meant he was always short of money. The Barbados government looked after him in retirement, although after his marriage broke down he lived in a modest bungalow. He was employed by the island's tourist board in a public relations capacity long after the customary retirement age. Other eminent cricketers thought it was demeaning for a man of his status.

With the World Cup on it reminds that we're really not that far away from when footballer's made very good money - but not set you up for life money (and those in lower-leagues too) - so would often end up on the after-dinner speaking circuit or, in England, the club might get them a pub to be landlord of. Sure it's true in other sports too that for all the (correct) talk about the money in them until very recently very little went to the players.

#2

Off the Record / Re: World Cup 2026

Last post by Valmy - Today at 01:51:42 PM

Worth it to see Trump have to hand the Cup over to those "bad people"

Yeah that's a good point 

I guess I kind of want Spain to win now.

#3

Off the Record / Re: World Cup 2026

Last post by HVC - Today at 01:48:24 PM

Kids got a bright future in FIFA

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Da5g9t8BcDq

#4

Off the Record / Re: The AI dooooooom thread

Last post by Valmy - Today at 01:43:29 PM

In the realm of AI companions, apparently the US builds AI girlfriends while China builds AI boyfriends.

Here's an article on the topic: https://www.chinatalk.media/p/why-america-builds-ai-girlfriends

Inevitably those ai boys and girls will hook up with each other, leaving their humans in the lurch

So I fooled around on one of those websites last year and made a sexy pulpy female spy to go on spy adventures. I was her handler who only interacted with her via coded messages handing out intel and assignments. I made other characters for her to interact with and put together a plot and...I don't know man. The AI was pretty lame at playing this character. Like I would be waving red flags all over the place "THIS OTHER CHARACTER IS PROBABLY AN ENEMY SPY" and she never did anything interesting like spied on them or broke into their apartments or tried to kill them or anything. Hey maybe you should seduce the handsome son of that corrupt billionaire to get access to incriminating documents? Nah. Very lame and the AIs become pretty boring and predictable fast.

I don't know what I was expecting, I guess I thought maybe it would delve into its deep resources of pulp spy novels and have the character do pulpy spy stuff and I was hopeful it would surprise me.

So the people who find these things compelling companions must be pretty lame.

However it had little problem enabling me to create male characters as well. I could have made a sexy James Bond spy and had him be lame as well.

#5

Off the Record / Re: Motorhoming in Spain

Last post by Valmy - Today at 01:19:53 PM

Not the first thing napoleon the 3rd fucked up

*edit* although the did crush the uprising, right? Something Louis couldn't do with his narrow streets

The uprising was crushed, but not by him.
Thiers, a veteran of French politics, did it.

Yeah well, Napoleon III was a Prussian prisoner long before the Commune came along.

But it does seem like the wide boulevards did their job. The Commune would have done much better with 1830 or 1848's street layout.

#6

Gaming HQ / Re: The Miscellaneous PC & vid...

Last post by Syt - Today at 01:18:44 PM

After Expeditions: Conquistador, Expeditions: Vikings, and Expeditions: Rome, next up is Expeditions: Samurai:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2212910/Expeditions_Samurai/

In which you will be an Englishman traveling on a Dutch ship getting wrecked in Japan.

In the year 1600, the navigator William Adams arrived in Japan. He would soon become the first European granted the title of "Samurai".

In Expeditions: Samurai, William Adams never leaves England; you will beat Adams to the punch and sail to Japan aboard the Dutch frigate De Albatros.

You arrive in Japan as the newly elected leader of a motley crew of privateers and are quickly swept up in an ongoing civil war that is nearing its climax. Navigate the politics, intrigue, and drama of feudal Japan as you and your crew catch the attention of powerful warlords whose struggle will determine the future of the nation.

#7

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Sheilbh - Today at 12:11:16 PM

Regarding the EU, I don't see the point of applying to rejoin until we get a very solid settled majority in favour (at least 66%); I suspect that most continental Europeans feel the same way. I do whinge about it myself but that is self-indulgence as I'm a huge believer in the European project (so much better than what came before).

I agree - I'm not sure 66% is enough either. But I'd go further. I think we should not have joined. Once we were in we should have stayed in. Now we're out we should proceed on that basis and I would say we shouldn't join until there is a settled majority and cross-party consensus for the European project. I think in retrospect it was a mistake that we joined on a very narrow parliamentary vote (309-301) that only happened because enough Labour rebels broke the three line whip against entry to outweigh the Tory rebels who broke the three line whip for entry. It's been a dividing line in British politics since the war and I don't think that's true in any other European country or going to end any time soon.

But also I think with the exception of Ted Heath, I don't think we've ever had leaders who acually believe in the European project. Even our most pro-EU PMs, like Blair, were basically instrumentalist - it was good because it helped our economy, good for our status etc not because they believed in the project in the way that is standard in the rest of Europe. And I think that's still a fundamental flaw. There was a really good Radek Sikorski piece or speech where he talked about this and said the problem with even thinking about re-joining is even the people who want that in Britain fundamentally do not understand the European project. It is not just a trade zone or an economic area - it is a politicial, constitutional project working towards ever closer union. You have the weird situation where pro-Europeans tend to dismiss the core purpose of the project as irrelevant while Eurosceptics take it seriously but hate it. And Europe has advanced (not as much as I'd like) in recent years through things like the NextGenEU, the Draghi report etc. I think you still see this in the cake-ism - I read a Guardian article musing if Keir Starmer's reset with Europe could involve "access to the single market" without free movement - and the answer is no. But that's from someone who would like to re-join essential but they still don't see the project at the heart of it just the bundle of perks and costs.

Honestly I think a lot of the support for "re-join" is regret and a desire to go back to 2016 - but I think very little of it is actually being in favour of the EU and what it is trying to do. Again this is the pro-European side but many/most are still profoundly uninterested in Europe, European politics or the European project. My own view is that basically at every point we should have stuck/should stick to the status quo with regards to Europe But I think we'd be insane to try and re-join and the EU would be insane to consider it until our political class actually took an interest in Europe and I'd say it wasn't a major divide within one of the main two governing parties (because the other side will win at some point).

For myself I was an enormous Euro-Federalist but fair to say I was radicalised by the response to the sovereign debt crisis which I think was a catastrophe for Europe that we're through the consequences of that lost decade of cuts to investment, wasting the opportunity of low inflation, low interest rates to re-invest etc. We went down very much the wrong path and a lot of our politics and problems in it across Europe are consequences of it (but this is like me hating Cameron and Osborne - and their Lib De enablers - vastly more than, say, Johnson).

#8

Off the Record / Re: Brexit and the waning days...

Last post by Richard Hakluyt - Today at 11:47:50 AM

Well it is not like people get to be Prime Minister because they are a nice unambitious person who just happened to be hanging around 

I totally agree concerning the economies that we should be using for the purposes of comparison. Namely Germany, France and Italy. These are all significant economies with extensive trade and not much in the way of natural resources, their populations and GDP per capita are all in the same general ballpark. We were badly behind in the 1970s which imo made Thatcher possible. The only problem is that they are all in the EU so might all be making the same mistakes; perhaps we should also look to South Korea and Japan.

Regarding the EU, I don't see the point of applying to rejoin until we get a very solid settled majority in favour (at least 66%); I suspect that most continental Europeans feel the same way. I do whinge about it myself but that is self-indulgence as I'm a huge believer in the European project (so much better than what came before).

#9

Off the Record / Re: World Cup 2026

Last post by Baron von Schtinkenbutt - Today at 11:44:10 AM

After the game?  There'll be a surprise immigration inspection at halftime if things aren't going the way he wants.

#10

Off the Record / Re: World Cup 2026

Last post by HVC - Today at 11:31:24 AM

Worth it to see Trump have to hand the Cup over to those "bad people"

Jokes on you, Trump will have ICE raid the locker room after the game on reports of rioting.