KentVillan

Was in Snowdonia or whatever it’s called now. There was barely anyone around, let alone police. Think you’re right though the main roads are stacked with speed cameras… you probably know a lot more than me being where you are!

It’s weird how different parts of the country treat speeding so differently. In London they’re brutal on weird traffic violations like getting stuck in a box junction, or swinging into a bus lane to let an ambulance past. But you can drive around the M25 at 100mph with no problems. North Yorkshire police love setting up speed traps and make a fortune from it. Down in Kent you barely ever see police doing that. Had similar experience in North Wales recently, could just bomb around as you wanted. It’s just all so weird and I don’t understand who sets the policies and why some places are so relaxed about it when others obviously treat it as a cash cow. And not saying it’s necessarily a bad thing, speeding is often dangerous, especially in residential areas. But the inconsistency is what catches people out.

Either way, nothing is as obnoxious as the desiccated ruins of Pompeii that come out the next day. Dublin hangovers are beaten only by Belgian hangovers for sheer brain hell

The taking 10 mins to pour a pint thing is very obnoxious

Amazing how many of them think Musk is a legal genius with the best lawyers in the known universe who can simply close the business in Europe and not pay out. The amount of collective delusion is astonishing. They really think he’s a superhero.

Whole thread is quite entertaining

I'm angry with myself because I'm starting to get excited about this stupid **** tournament

I never thought grudge bearing was an Irish thing, but my Irish grandma refused to speak to her entire extended family for about 50 years and has never told anyone why. She has dementia now so we’ll never find out. I think it’s just a personality trait. Also, for all I know, maybe they did something awful to her, and it was completely justified. One of life’s mysteries. I think stereotypes are partly true… different cultures give more leeway to different personality quirks. If you’re born with these quirks, some cultures celebrate or ignore them, while others try to correct them. So like a tactile English boy who likes dancing and expressing his emotions will have it drummed out of him with cold stares. An American kid who loves irony and jokes that are actually funny will find himself dying in front of an audience that demands loud obvious humour. Etc. We are all born in certain ways and then moulded by the people around us. That’s why all Spanish people have a lisp.

I don’t want to get into a massive debate about Falklands / Malvinas because I know they are a weird vestige of colonialism and basically unsustainable as a stand-alone community. HOWEVER, the idea that the native population was “cleansed” from those islands to create an artificial British majority is just nonsense. It’s not comparable with Crimea. They were mostly uninhabited for centuries (with occasional part time settlements, prison colonies, etc) and have been British for nearly 200 years, with no displacement of a native population involved in establishing that. That’s rather different from Crimea or Israel/Palestine, which have been continuously populated for millennia, and have seen multiple rounds of ethnic cleansing in recent memory.

In fairness, whatever job you do, and however much money you make, striking that balance can be very hard. If you’re massively invested in something and struggle to delegate, you can easily get into this situation and it’s not as easy as just chucking money at the problem or reducing your working hours at the click of a finger. Might be easier to relate to if you think of a typical football manager. They usually either have a very patient wife and family, or they make time for family by being a lazy manager (Bruce), or they are extremely divorced (Wenger, Emery). Would you begrudge them making this complaint?

Same same. Screen usage stats on my phone are bleak

My point is this whole “we have the best data” thing hasn’t worked for a ton of “AI”-driven companies. The idea that “data is the new oil” has been thoroughly discredited, and usually these turn out to be engineering / logistics / commercialisation problems rather than data problems. It’s also not that easy to patent a lot of it. Established car manufacturers will hire ex-Tesla staff and will collect similar data, and it won’t take them as long, because catching up is always easier than innovating. Then all their other commercial advantages start to kick in. Think of Tesla as the Yahoo or Altavista. There will be a Google. Plus, bringing it back on topic, Tesla is now massively exposed to all this Twitter debt and to whatever happens to Musk’s reputation after this car crash (pun intended) has played out.

That’s horse shit, though, tbh. They’re only the “nearest” because Musk makes wild claims about their progress. “AI” (more accurately, machine learning or automation) in other fields hasn’t worked in the way described. It tends to be multiple research groups / businesses / organisations making progress at similar times, and the commercial value is in how you package it up. The TSLA price pump isn’t that different from crypto. Yes there’s a real technological thing underlying it all, but the stories told about it are largely BS, and it’s fuelled by a lot of delusion, mania, and outright fraud. Twitter is actually a good illustration of how Musk operates. People are much more familiar with Twitter than they are with self driving cars, so the fantasy is a tougher sell for him, and it fails in real time.

Think a lot of the Musk fanboys don’t realise how hard it is to keep something like Twitter running 24/7, especially as it has such unpredictable traffic, and any new features / updates / bug fixes are happening on a live service. Should be entertaining…

One of the weirdest things is watching all these fanboys who will defend Elon to the death. I never much liked him, but it was that whole “pedo guy” affair that made me realise he wasn’t just an overrated oddball, but an actively harmful personality who needs to be stopped.

I think some people do genuinely come out of bullying quite well, but it takes a lot of emotional strength and a good family / support network, and a firm belief that you aren’t being bullied because of anything you’ve done wrong. Unfortunately most victims of bullying are already vulnerable in some way (even if it’s just being a teenager!) and find themselves a bit ostracised, **** their self esteem, and has life long effects on their mental health. People talk a lot about standing up to bullies, but actually the best thing you can do is just be kind to the victims and let them know you’re on their side. Not everyone has the physical strength or social status to stand up to a bully without making themselves a target, but everyone can show a bit of kindness.

Seems to be going incredibly badly wrong

Because Norway has a proper legal system

There aren’t really *any* dirty teams in the Premier League anymore. It’s so hard to get away with anything. Nowadays it’s more cynical stuff like taking a yellow or time wasting. The days of being able to kick a team off the park have gone. There’s still a place for being tough and physical, but you can’t do the old dark arts without VAR picking it up… unless you’re Man Utd.

He’s done an advert in Polish. It’s on his Instagram… it’s amazing.

This should improve his reputation on VT

CR7 is an all-time great footballer, but I've never liked him as a person. The way he celebrates tap ins and penalties, the way he looks disgruntled when teammates get on the scoresheet. The preening. The allegations about his off-the-field behaviour. He's a textbook narcissist, and any stories to the contrary look like expensive PR or clubs protecting him because they need his goals. Not surprised his career is ending like this. Would take Messi any day - got Argentina as my WC favourites, which would be a fitting end to his career.

Musk is one of those guys who believes that if you are enough of a demanding, unrealistic, obnoxious word removed, the impossible will happen, and all the lazy kids will suddenly spring into action and make shit happen. It’s a terrible way of achieving anything, but sadly way too many people believe it.

Bullying is usually a circular thing, like most forms of abuse. You learn to abuse by being abused. Some people are sociopaths who get off on bullying, but a lot of so-called "bullying" is people deflecting things that are happening to them. Or struggling to handle legitimate feelings in a mature way. Good to have as much empathy as possible for everyone.

The real thrill of stand up for me is when you see someone you've never heard of in a small club, and they just tear the place up. Even better if a heckler disrupts it a bit and they manage to handle it. Among the more established comics, I've always enjoyed Stewart Lee. James Acaster and Kevin Bridges from the new generation are consistently brilliant. In the US, Chris Rock, Dave Chapelle, Anthony Jeselnik (his murder suicide routine is incredible), Doug Stanhope and Bill Burr all make me laugh, although all prone to going a bit too far into tedious culture war stuff these days.