Anthony

24 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

 

It’s always been about the lines on the map.

When you buy a globe or an atlas, there won’t be a little asterix that says whilst this bit is Russia, it did cost them 2,000 tanks and 300 mini buses.

True, but only afterwards. Right now, in the thick of it, looking at lines on the map tells you almost nothing.

Why Gobby Cabbage still gets employment as a football pundit. I mean, I can't stand the bloke at the best of times, but he could make it a bit harder for me to hate him by being good at his job. He's shit. He adds nothing I couldn't add, and I'm **** useless. "Ooh, that was good skill, that." "He's a good player, he is." "Great anticipation, that." 

56 minutes ago, luckyeddie said:

On American programmes you here people say "a bunch of water". WTF. I know language evolves and changes. There are hundreds of words to use rather than bunch. Use one.

A gargle. 

21 hours ago, luckyeddie said:

US cultural imperialism. What makes it worse is they don't know they're doing it. 

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

ah ok .... I was under the impression the Abba motion cap was done by younger people and not Abba themselves , guess I was thinking they could do kinda hologram and substitute type things 

Sorry, wasn't trying to be snarky. If you watch footage of ABBA back in the day, then watch the Voyage show it's so good it's uncanny.

I do wonder how hard it would be to fake it for the Beakles? You'd have to have some amazing animators to get it right.

2 hours ago, tonyh29 said:

I've heard the original demo , that Harrison described as **** rubbish 

There have been a few cleaned up AI version of it doing the rounds over the years , the last one was a decent effort but not really a Beatle song in that regard  ...

McCartney is saying the new version is all them and no AI  .. it will be interesting to hear from a curiosity pov but no more than that 

I think with the ABBA voyage success , i can kinda see where this is going though 

Good luck doing motion capture on George Harrison and John Lennon.

I've been to the ABBA Voyage thing and it's **** awesome. Helped in no small part that the arena is designed specifically for it. The sound is amazing, and I'm a sound nerd. The transition between projected stuff and real stuff is absolutely seamless. /nerdgasm.

1 hour ago, ender4 said:

Won't they be fixing some, making more, servicing old ones whilst the war is going on?

Also don't they have like a billion tanks? (slight exaggeration)

Yeah, fixing and cannibalising - all very normal. We do it in the UK and we're not even at war.

The problem is that due to sanctions things massively complicate things for Russia. Sanctions will never stop the imports, but will make it harder/slower/more expensive/less reliable to get some of the more high tech spares.

All that said, the rate a which they've been losing equipment in the last week or so, I doubt even the US on a full wartime economy footing would be able to replace the losses.

And it's only a million tanks. Get it right. Attention to detail is important.

On 21/10/2023 at 18:55, villa4europe said:

Flag football at the Olympics

Got no problem with them adding new sports for the Olympics, I'm even interested in how the break dancing in Paris will look but flag football... Come on, it's a sport exclusive to the yanks in their Olympics, waste of time

Ah, money talks. 

I guess it's like touch rugby for kids. The idea is you get kids seeing it, then buying NFL merchandise, sorry, playing the sport, then it gets worldwide popular, then rugby players have to wear armor {sp} and helmets and doing touchdowns instead of trys. 

THEN they buy the merchandise and lots of money drains to the US

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

 

People seem to think that Russia literally has an unlimited number of fighting age men they can throw at this.  But the losses they are taking MUST be eroding their numbers at speed.  I've re-posted something I first put up in August.

Since then Russia has continued to throw men into the meatgrinder. I would expect even more men to have left or gone underground.  They've got absolutely gigantic borders to control and a great many troublesome regions to control, they still need men in industry and farming and science and in their Oil and Gas industry.  Men needed in arms factories to replenish their dwindling supplies.

I am pretty sure they must be struggling with manpower in all areas by now.   Their population was already in steady decline and now they're wiping out an entire generation of young men.

I don't think they have an unlimited number of fighting age men, but I believe the Russian leadership thinks so. Their tactics suggest so.. I think that's all they know how to do, on the battlefield at least. 

14 hours ago, Panto_Villan said:

I mean they couldn’t have picked a worse place to attack if they tried. Ukraine have been fortifying Avdiivka (sp?) since 2014 so I think things are heavily tilted in their favour there.

Especially given that the US gave them all the cluster munitions for their artillery a few months back.

Its a concern that Ukraine are struggling to push Russia back, but I don’t think there’s much chance Ukraine are going to be pushed back either.

Funnily enough, I read about those defences about half an hour after I posted.

"We're going to go them at their strongest point." 

"Why sir?" 

"it's the LAST thing they'll expect!" 

"A cunning plan indeed." 

It is kind of nuts the losses the Russians are taking, but my fear is that the AFU will be overwhelmed with sheer numbers; obviously a constant fear in this war, but it's one of the few 'tactics' the Russians have that appear to 'work'.

It's all about power at a point. It's obviously great that the AFU can eliminate loads of Russian forces, but can the AFU get enough troops/equipment in place quickly enough to stop the Russian attacks? Who knows. I hope so.

55 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Chilling lager down to the point you can’t taste the lager is a real product endorsement.

She'll be alright, it's the Australian way mate. No worries etc.

Just now, tonyh29 said:

There is a way to stop this happening  , The instructions are on this Youtube link 

https://youtu.be/xvFZjo5PgG0?si=zdH7-DJ-rk6c637d

 

Ah, brilliant. I'd almost given up. Never going to happen though.

Getting annoyed at cookies. Look, all I want is minimal tracking. Is there a way to save a cookie just so that it doesn't have to ask me ever effing time? getting bored of putting my postcode into the bbc new site every time I want to look at it. Maybe it's my I Don't Care About Cookies setting. It's too boring to do anything about it other than moan here.

13 hours ago, Xela said:

Prompted by a discussion on another thread...

Zero/low alcohol beer. 

I'd rather have a coke or J20

That's because you haven't tried 0% Guinness. Coke I'll drink, but J20 tastes like soap to me. Haven't tried any of the other no alcohol beers, mind. 

12 minutes ago, AvfcRigo82 said:

The legal frame work in this country when it comes to civil and family law cases (I dare say others too) is really damning.

I was involved in a hearing yesterday taking a non-paying customer to court to recover money owed from a job that I completed for them last year. It's a four figure sum hence going through the hassle to pursue the claim.

The whole claim/case was dismissed on the grounds where the defendant verbally claimed I had left their front doors wide open comprising the security of their house! Judge ruled in their favour despite me having a plethora of evidence.

Absolute ******* unbelievable!

As you tell it that sounds absolutely ridiculous. Definitely appeal. And get a lawyer. Actually, get a lawyer first.

15 minutes ago, BOF said:

Yeah it came out around covid. From looking up headlines it looks like it had a troubled start in the UK and re-launched in the summer 2021, so you're not that out of date. But it's becoming popular there now. It's a good effort in fairness. Probably doesn't hold its head as long as the real thing but it's definitely drinkable and preferable to most 0% lagers if you're stuck as the designated Dessie or if mere alcohol doesn't thrill you at all.

So tell me why should it be true?

14 minutes ago, BOF said:

I think this one is more an Irish pricing thing than a UK thing.  Whatever about alcohol. It's a pub. You do you. But soft drinks being the same price, or often dearer, than alcohol. That should be illegal. Especially when you're pretending to try and promote no drink driving in suburban/rural pubs and I know soft drinks cost you comparitively the square root of **** all retail. Incentivise the soft drinks. But no, they'd rather absolutely squeeze every **** penny they can out of the poor sod who; for whatever reason; has to be on the orange pop that evening. Even the alcohol free stuff should be a lot cheaper than it is, given your purchase price/taxation is significantly affected by alcohol content.

Strong agree. 

0% Guinness is a genuinely nice drink. But it's priced the same as the full alcohol version, both in pubs (if you can find it) and in supermarkets. They are taking the piss. 

Half strength Guinness on the other hand, should be poured straight down the drain. 

4 hours ago, JoshVilla said:

These kind of lists are always a nightmare. Like other posters have said, most of it comes down to who you like. Also, does "best" mean most popular? Most influential? Most technically adept?

In terms of a guitarist that can do everything technically, has a great understanding of harmony but still has a brilliant feel and sense of melody, you can go too far wrong with Guthrie Govan.

I call him Sven. Him and his brother Seth were friends of my brother in Chelmsford in the 90s. Many, many beers with those guys. No idea why I started calling him Sven though. 

Amused by this review of the new Madonna show/tour thing. Amused by what it doesn't say. 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/madonna-ap-london-o2-arena-lourdes-leon-b2429936.html

Quote

Madonna played songs from across her vast career

Any of you tried lactase tablets? 

2 hours ago, Mark Albrighton said:

@sidcow’s post just now in the general chat thread has reminded me.

Eating contests. I don’t know if we really have them over here, I only ever encounter this occasionally in US pop culture. But cramming as much food down your gob in a set amount of time, I really find it gross. And that’s without going into the food waste aspect of it.

To give an example, the pie eating scene in Stand By Me lets an otherwise excellent film down.

So Rob Reiner can leave that segment on the cutting room floor and these competitions can **** off.

Bloody good call. Unless maybe all participants have to actually piss on some poor people, on camera, before they're allowed to compete. Maybe then they'd realise that thinking it's ok to take part in one of these competitions defines you as a word removed of the highest order.

Just now, Davkaus said:

It's all incredibly boring, poor quality coffee as well

**** yeah. As soon as I'm out of pods, it's going back on ebay.