Tamura

2 hours ago, Chest Rockwell said:

I have to ask. What does the top hat do? 

I have absolutely no idea. The person "training" me didn't know, and to be honest he wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. He wanted me to add 690 to 1245 by selecting two cells on Excel, and didn't like me doing it in my head as he assumed I'd done it wrong when I did it in a split second. He didn't even understand my explanation of the simple way of doing it which avoids the carry over addition method, which was to simply add 700 to 1245 then subtract 10. 

Windows software developers that think 8,000 different icons are a good idea. I'm sure most people are familiar with 'print' and 'save' and other simple ones, but look at the state of that! What's wrong with a simple drop-down menu?

November tournament starts on Sunday, preview show is up on NHK World here, including a recap of September's tournament. NHK World also has live coverage of day 1 from 8.10am on Sunday and can be watched here. If you have Freeview and an internet connected TV you can watch NHK World on your TV just by selecting channel 286. For those that don't want to sit through the lengthy pre-match ceremonies there's also a daily highlight show on NHK World at 4:30pm and 11:30pm on Sunday, and the same time every subsequent day for the rest of the tournament. Or for people who don't want to watch the highlight show live they will be available here, I believe they get added some time around the end of the 11:30pm highlight show, I've never sat around waiting for it to be added so not 100% sure.

On 11/6/2023 at 11:50 PM, Merzbow said:

I might have to give it a watch, I've been binging on older deathmatches recently thanks to that Blake lad on YouTube.

What's his channel like these days? I helped him out with some footage he needed for the History of the Circus Deathmatch video and another that currently escapes me, but upon actually watching one he had the most incredibly irritating tendency of telling you what was about to happen instead of commentating on what just happened.

On 11/6/2023 at 3:45 PM, Dai said:

- In the middle of his epic title reign, Mighty Mouse got just $350k against Tim Elliot and $245k for the first Cejudo match. That seems absolute insanity. Must have been a huge bitter pill to swallow for him.

To be honest, he was probably being overpaid. Here's the PPV buys/attendances/ticket revenue from the shows where he was the main or co-main event, I won't bother with non-PPV shows.

Co-main at UFC 152: Jones vs. Belfort - 16,800 fans paying $1,921,000, 450,000 PPV buys
Main at UFC 174: Johnson vs. Bagautinov - 13,506 fans paying $1,140,000, 115,000 PPV buys
Main at UFC 178: Johnson vs. Cariaso - 10,554 fans paying $2,200,000, 205,000 PPV buys (from my 2023 eyes this looks a seriously stacked card, so unsure how much credit Johnson can be given for this bearing in mind the typical buys for his headlining shows)
Main at UFC 186: Johnson vs. Horiguchi - 10,154 fans paying $668,000, 125,000 PPV buys
Main at UFC 191: Johnson vs. Dodson 2 - 10,873 fans paying $1,362,700, 115,000 PPV buys
Co-main at UFC 197: Jones vs. Saint Preux - 11,352 fans paying $2,300,000, 322,000 PPV buys
Co-main at UFC 216: Ferguson vs. Lee - 10,638 fans paying $677,999, 200,000 PPV buys
Co-main at UFC 227: Dillashaw vs. Garbrandt 2 - 17,794 fans paying $2,848,928, 300,000 buys

Other than the UFC 178 outlier it's clear that, at least in terms of this sample set, when he's the main event Johnson sold significantly less PPVs than when someone else is headlining. Difficulty to say whether that's because of the lack of interest in smallers fighters across combat sports, UFC's failure to promote him or the division properly, or just Johnson's ineptitude at promoting, or a combination of all three. But purely from those numbers, as good as his title reign may have been, it was a box-office failure.

5 hours ago, 69MeDon said:

Sure, but still probably better than a tent.

Well, obviously a hotel room is better than a tent, cardboard box or sleeping bag in a shop doorway. But it's obvious the system of housing homeless people in hotels is prohibitively expensive and counter-productive. So rather than adopt a "put British homeless people in hotels instead" policy, central government and local councils would be better off spending the money ensuring more is done to make affordable housing available.

To be honest I had no idea of any controversy about how close Johnson was to kicking the bucket, and whether he should have been in intensive care or not. It seems pretty clear that when he was admitted to hospital his health was declining and he needed medical intervention. That said, the same could be said for someone with appendicitis, which can be fatal, so the whole "NHS saved my life" is probably pushing things a bit too far.

7 minutes ago, 69MeDon said:

Hey, since you're all so anti-putting asylum seekers in hotels, maybe we can put British homeless into hotels instead? No? Oh, ok.

We do, I'm not entirely sure why people think that's a positive thing though. As a recent Guardian article points out, there's supposed to be a legal limit of six weeks for people in hotel accommdation before being moved into more appropriate housing. People in hotels generally have no access to cooking or laundry facilities, making their financial situation much worse than if they were in proper housing. 

6 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

Does anyone (apart from his fans) actually believe he nearly died?

We only have to be lucky once.

Tent? Luxury!

I'm surprised there's not more shock and outrage at some of the things coming out at the COVID-19 inquiry, such as Matt Hancock wanting to decide who lived and died, or Johnson thinking older people should just accept they were going to die, or Johnson asking if a special hair dryer up the nose could kill COVID. Truly astonishing Johnson had the brass neck to say that about older people, considering we'd be busy pissing on his grave right now were it not for the life-saving treatment he received.

12 hours ago, Nostalgia Nonce said:

I don't what I did to sway the algorithms, but for the last two months Facebook has bombarded me with posts from flat Earth groups

If you're using a computer and not the app on a phone I recommend Fluff Busting Purity. It's great for hiding all the crap Facebook tries to push on you, and you can add your own custom filters too so a quick add of "flat earth" means you'll never see a post containing the words again.

34 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said:

A local Facebook group is saying she’s the first UK woman to win her UFC debut. Is that right?

No. Cory McKenna won her debut, as did Joanne Wood.

On 3/23/2023 at 7:53 AM, Dead Mike said:

https://beyondthejoke.co.uk/content/13292/ade-edmondson-book

Ade Edmondson has an autobiography coming out. Will definitely read it although I fear there'll be a single chapter on Bottom and 7 dedicated to his shitty folk band.

After borrowing a copy from the library, you're not that wide of the mark. While The Bad Shepherds don't get that much coverage, Bottom barely gets any at all. The TV show gets a nine-page chapter, plus a couple of mentions elsewhere. The live shows get slighrly more coverage, but still not a lot. The Young Ones gets a small chapter too, although right at the start Adrian explains how he doesn't like to be defined by it, since it only took up fourteen weeks of his life (or fifteen, if you include the musical collaboration with Cliff). There's definitely more coverage of his various musical endeavours than The Young Ones and Bottom combined. In fact, there's probably a disproprortionate amount of detail about his early life and boarding school. While they are obviously important parts of his life story, I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping for more details about his most popular output. He doesn't leave school until page 163 (of 400), so there's 20x more pages about his life up to the age of 16 than there is about the TV show Bottom. It's funny in places, but it's hardly a laugh a minute and the end of the book is particularly depressing.

On 10/14/2023 at 11:04 PM, Lion_of_the_Midlands said:

Galan like Boycott compared to the other two.

When it's slow scoring in limited overs cricket, Sunvil Gavaskar is the benchmark to avoid.

13 minutes ago, Browser Brady said:

What am i missing here ?

A relevant history lesson.

13 minutes ago, Merzbow said:

I've pretty much given up on vinyl after seeing many that I want being released at close to forty quid. More and more smaller artists have gone back to cassettes and CDs for their physical releases because it's just not financially viable for them to get anything pressed, if they can get it pressed in the first place due to Adele etc blocking up the pipeline with shit that'll end up being waste.

If new records are being sold for £40, that's because they are being pressed somewhere stupidly expensive or because someone is milking buyers for all they are worth. Although ~£10 for an album used to be the norm in the DIY punk scene before Brexit, it's still only gone up to around ~£12-15, that's for albums bought from a UK distro importing from the EU. I was in Sweden at the weekend and bought a brand new album for around £8. Admittedly it was direct from the band, but it does demonstrate that £40 is taking the piss.

1 hour ago, LCJ said:

Brilliant.

I still have the shirt Sabcat did ages, can't be bothered digging it out for a photo but here's the design.

9 minutes ago, Tommy! said:

It should also include Manchester & Leeds 

Leeds was deep-sixed in 2021. Although as someone unfortunate enough to use the trans-Pennine route regularly, the ridiculous number of cancelled services is bad enough already. They can't recruit enough staff as it is, more trains won't solve that problem.

On 10/1/2023 at 5:37 PM, King Coconut said:

Was there fuck all there?

I guess it depends what you go places for. There's the highest sea cliffs in the UK, plus Stac an Armin which is the highest sea stack in the UK. I'm interested in abandoned civilizations, and it's fascinating to see how fast nature takes back over once humans have been mostly removed (The World Without Us by Alan Weisman is an excellent book on the subject). There is a little museum in one of the houses run by the National Trust, who have also renovated a couple of the other houses and the church, although they have no plans to restore the rest of the main street or the older black houses. It's also one of ~30 places in the world that has double UNESCO World Heritage Status, for culture and nature.

On 10/1/2023 at 5:45 PM, Keith Houchen said:

There’s a Greggs and a Wetherspoons. 

There was a pub there! Sadly it stopped serving vistors in 2005 due to apparent security concerns, so was only open to the semi-resident National Trust volunteers, visiting scientists and military personnel.

On 10/2/2023 at 10:14 AM, tiger_rick said:

Perfect social distancing, surely?

Yes and no. You generally get to St Kilda on a boat trip from one of the Western Isles such as Skye, Harris or Lewis, and they were actively discouraging people from visiting at the start of the pandemic, and St Kilda itself was closed to visitors. On my first proper attempted trip in 2021 the boat's skipper was checking everyone with a foreheard therometer before letting them on board. He went down the line going "you're ok", "you're ok", "you're ok", then said to me "you're a fucking zombie" when it gave no reading at all for me (my optician had the same happen, after trying twice to get a reading she even tested it on herself to make sure it was actually working).

4 hours ago, TheBurningRed said:

I’ve got a bit of an obsession with small remote islands with small populations that I want to visit

Mine is more small remote islands without any population, not permanent residents anyway. The last 36 permanent residents of St Kilda were evacuated in 1930, and last September I finally got there, after several years of trying.

I originally booked a trip for mid-2020 all the way back in October 2019, obviously I don't need to explain why that didn't happen. Due to the extreme difficulty of landing on St Kilda in bad weather the tour company only run trips between April and September, so rebooked for July 2021. Everything seemed to be going perfectly, the weather was fine so we were good to go. Assembled at the jetty super early, had the safety demonstration and got life jackets fitted and onto the boat fine, only for the skipper to accidentally damage the propeller on the concrete jetty while setting off. So rebooked for September 2021, only for both sailing days to be cancelled because of the weather. Not to be deterred, rebooked for June 2022, only for both days to be cancelled again because of weather. I'm thinking I'm cursed at this point, but rebook for September 2022, and finally, on the fourth attempt, I managed to get there.

I guess it depends on who needs convincing, but coming from a background in mathematics I tend to err on the side of caution when it comes to improbability.

Look at it this way. 

Apparently the people behind this are all-powerful. Quite why they'd feel the need to use that power to discredit a single critic is another matter, is Brand really making a measureable impact to their profit or power? But anyway, for whatever reason they've decided Brand needs to be discredited. Now if they are as all-powerful as claimed, they really shouldn't have any difficulty following the nice, simple plan I outlined. But instead they've gone another route. Now if Brand is to be believed (which he isn't obviously) the women in question are all liars and/or completely mispresenting what occured. So if that is the case (which it isn't obviously) the conspirators would have had to contact several women from his past asking them to make these false (which they aren't obviously) claims, and that's where the potential problem starts. They have no idea of these women's loyality to Brand, they could easily have tipped Brand off when approached, or publicised it to the media or on their own social media account(s). That nobody has reported such an approach suggests a 100% success rate as there are no women saying "two Men in Black asked me to lie about my past relationship with Brand". I won't claim to have any first-hand knowledge of schemes to discredit someone, but I know that as soon as you involve people of unknown loyalty who aren't under your direct control you're asking for trouble, if the conspirators are as all-powerful as claimed then they'd be just as capable of mounting an "in-house" operation without the risk involved in seeking the assistance of third parties.

Of course what Brand can't explain is why those behind this supposed conspiracy have gone to all this trouble in the first place. I mean why would they bother to drag up women from his past and convince them to tell their story now, when it would have been far easier just to entangle Brand in a straightforward honey trap and accuse him of rape straight away. Given his reputation for behaviour around women, just dangle an attractive women in front of him and he'd have fallen for it without any trouble at all.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66876213

Excellent timing on the release of the survey that clearly demonstrates why victims of sexual assault may not choose to report it.

The number of actors, many of them big names, willing to appear in Roman Polanski films suggests some people within the entertainment industry are prepared to bury their head in the sand. It's not like the vast majority of them actually need to work with him is it, they aren't poor, out-of-work actors struggling to pay their rent.

6 minutes ago, Tommy! said:

I'm after a digital or CD copy of Steel n' Chains, does anyone know where I can find one?

Assuming you mean the Spartan Warrior album, you can get it in FLAC on rutracker (if you can navigate a Russian site, I've never had any difficulty), which is usually an excellent source of often obscure releases (as is Soulseek, but that seems to be in a long, terminal decline).

https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5273180

There doesn't seem to be any official digitial or CD release, so unofficial is your only option unless you want to pay a fortune for a vinyl copy.

1980s/90s TV show Bread, about a family of dole scrounging Scousers, was a sitcom. I always thought it was a fly on the well documentary...