VILLAMARV

Apart from the license fee of course

Although I should probably rephrase that as the free to air ones that don't require any subscription of any kind

Looks like it's just figures for terrestrial TV i.e the 5 channels you gont need cable/satellite/internet etc for.

That's called self selection bias and there's nothing remotely tin foil hatty about it being a real and observable phenomena. Not sure what this means tbh?

Bit late for International womens day but stumbled across this which chats to a few ladies from the 70s/80s punk scene https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/08/gender.arts

@Jareth, Given that we are aware of the nukes they don't have from the US and the way our secret services are intertwined and how powerless we are as individuals and as collective voting blocks against the wishes, legal or otherwise, of the Industrial Military Complex I'm not sure what response from individuals you are looking for. I think it's pretty obvious over the years that we share the utter horror and disgust at the mistreatment of ANY living creatures, and I for one am utterly horrified at how people not directly involved can do mental gymnastics to normalise or outright justify torture, denigration and so on. And that is true no matter the border or country or religeons involved. Or what the economic benefit may be. It's just the morality, which I'd hope all us posters share in some form, is not a constant and it is not a truism of the human condition. It may be the struggle since the enlightenment and I for one believe it is possible for us humans to overcome our more base desires through thought and reasoning. But I also don't think I'm bearing witness to that period of history. We're evidently not quite there yet. We can't even share the most basic of needs with our fellow humans, like food or water, instead preferring they starve while we dump food because, you know, economic gain. I'd love to live in a moral world and whatever hollywood and disney tell us, we don't. We can, in small ways, affect our own environment. I'd like to think my home is a moral place. I make moral decisions, but it's entirely subjective and it is not my place to inflict that version of morality onto others. Chin up mate, but don't mistake frippery for soulless amorality. As Camus said, life is absurd.

Mahoosive game.

An actual 6 pointer but need to remember win or lose it's still only 3 points. To be fair to them I thought they were a good team when we played them and we were pretty fortunate to come away with the win. I think a draw wouldn't be the worst result in the world for us. 4-0

I still have a Hick 405 although the glue behind the plastic coating is kind of discoloured.

Can't see it being a good morning. MrsVM is not going to be happy I kept their existence from her all these years.

this reminds me of the time my (now sadly deceased) friend and me were doing a bar together at an event in a local venue that the pub we worked for at the time had the license for. It was an all female audience for sure. I can't remember the organisation though. Mind you it'd be about 25+ years ago now. We had to provide a free glass of wine on entry and so we set up our table, bowties on and everything and we pre poured a few glasses so that there wouldn't be a hold up for wine being poured unneccessarily. Anyhow we did a row, or about 5/6 glasses of red and then the rest of the table taken up with white (it being the 90's having both kinds of wine was the height of fashion in the Welsh countryside dontcha know) but it wasn't our first rodeo n that. Cue Millie Tant, full on accusing us of sexistly pouring more white than red, and us foolishly protesting it was a purely functional decision etc. Her and her friend took a glass of red after their dressing down of us and they were the only two that left that table once everyone had walked in.

the moon tickled me more than it probably should there. very good.

while there may be some hyperbole there, it might be the case that statisticians in some data science depts maybe sometimes have referred to their geographer colleagues as 'The Colouring In Department"

More road related gripery, but the state of the road surfaces in Herefordshire. Genuinely never seen A roads so bad in the UK.

I liked Bailey telling Watkins he didn't pass to him because he was offside late on. Martinez got my potm vote despite, as others have said, really wayward distribution. Missed the first 20 minutes as I was heading home after a funeral. Considering the level of performance 0-0 is hardly a bad result away to Ajax. McGinn filling in at CB for the last 10 mins was an odd sight.

You're not wrong but I;m still laughing. That tickled me. cheers, I needed cheering up

I'm a yam yam exiled in da Wales

And the online ones are blighted by self selection bias. And a lack of oversight. Of course in the targetted algorythm world commissioning different polls built to get the response you desire from each individual is the name of the game.

Bingo, and if so, who says so and why? It's ultimately the flaw in any economic model based on the perfect model. Humans don't conform to the perfect model or mathematical logic. Nor should they. However much pressure or threat of punishment is put upon them. Emotive reasoning is not a negative to be overcome. But it's really hard to quantify in mathematical models. The more complex societal models will attempt to address this emotive reasoning and build some allowances into the model but moral philosophy is hard to ascribe a numerical value. Data sets are not objective. I dunno, it's classic utilitarianism, like the trolley problem.

to be fair to @Xela

I get the question. I suppose my immediate response would be to ask (perhaps rhetorically, I'm not pressing for a definitive answer) what the metric is for good/harm? How do we effectively measure, evaluate and compare harm? And that's ultimately also your question right?

As Mr No Phone Weirdo it's all academic to me. But that was also why it interested me. We were all having a nice meal and the subject of the statistician sat at the table being the only one (with a phone obvs) who couldnt receive location pings via whatsapp to find the restaurant became the focus of the conversation. So much good natured merriment and banter between friends about the data scientist getting with the tech programme. And genuine interest from the rest about their reasoning as to why they favour one free to use service over another free to use service. But as you all anecdotally attest to there was this obvious backlash to the notion of changing. I'm not sure whether it was brand loyalty or some sort of defensive response to the idea that anything they were doing could be deemed worth of critique or laziness as mentioned above but it was visceral. Personally the only time whatsapp came onto my radar at all was back in my phone owning days (not a smart one) when a sports team I was a part of would chat over it but I couldn't access it from my computer and they found it hilariously too much effort to send a text or email or use a different app/ find another platform that we could all access. So no biggie, I turned up for training when it was cancelled and that sort of thing. I've never used it and am unlikely to do so, but my friend (the signal using one) said much the same as you guys in that only their closest friends who genuinely wanted to contact them that had got tired over time of losing contact - had downloaded the signal app, and kind of under duress.

Could have gone in a few different threads and if this one is inappropriate then move it or whatever but a bit of a commotion over by here last night. Noticed a couple of police cars in the street yesterday afternoon but as I live pretty much opposite a halfway house it's not an altogether uncommon sight. About tea-time though I noticed a fire engine blocking the road and police tape everywhere and an ambulance outside the halfwayhouse. There was a guy up on the roof threatening to jump. There were multiple times of the guy going in and out the building through his window. He was clearly very agitated. The vast majority of the service personnel there were keeping their distance quite clearly presumably so as not to agitate the situation with numbers. It took around 6 hours until they packed up and went home and I think they got the guy inside safely in the end. As most of you know I live in a pretty rural place, so I'll probably know some of the lads sat in the fire engine. The same guys who had to deal with my mates body when he killed himself during lockdown. But much respect to anyone who has to deal with situations like that as part of their jobs. Amazingly high pressure environment. Harrowing. Whoever was on call to "talk them down" or however it's described outside of hollywood earned their corn last night. As I said, Respect.

some people hake them