Dunge

And spent all of Covid making out it was just a bad case of flu.

Society should always encourage reading.

I don’t understand why some think there would be less war with Trump as President. The man is a known coward. He’d just have America run away and leave the rest of the world to it.

Personally I think he’s had an experience with his own mortality and wants to go down in history as Tsar Vladimir the Great before he meets his maker.

Ok, so maybe it’s the word “acceptable” that we’re disagreeing on. What I mean is: When Russia went into Ukraine, they effectively said “If anyone tries to stop us they’ll face the consequences”. Ever since those troops crossed the border, NATO’s approach has been to work out what they can do without causing an escalation. Support? Tanks? Aircraft? Missiles? All done bit by bit and quite visually in case Russia responded. All a grey area without precedence. All writing rules that others might work to for years to come. How much can you get away with as an authoritarian expansionist? What is unofficially “acceptable”?

Maybe one thing to hold onto is that if even an autocratic leader is genuinely insane then they tend to get offed. Like Caligula.

I didn’t necessarily say “nuclear war” there. I mean that it feels like boundaries are being tested and pushed against states that are either nuclear armed themselves or under the veil of nuclear protection. And as I say, the next new question might come from Kim Jong Un, who it seems has just had a significant birthday and is thinking about what his legacy might look like beyond just “he was a leader of North Korea who made no real impact on anything”. I reckon there’s an element of that with Putin too.

It’s starting to feel like we might be entering a new era of warfare. Ukraine have fired missiles into nuclear-armed Russia; nukes have not come in return. Iran have fired missiles into nuclear-armed Pakistan; nukes have not come in return. It feels like Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is rewriting the rules on acceptable war in the 21st Century, and the fallout pushing the lines of conflict backwards. Russia wants war. Hamas wants war. Whether Israel does is debatable but a case can be made. Kim Jong Un has been issuing different threats of late and could be the next to eye it up, asking a new question of whether and how much the South dares to fight back if he attacks - not just “you can’t attack me because I have nukes” but “you can’t stop me because I have nukes”. It’s a mighty big bluff to call but would need calling if presented. The question of the exact use of nukes feels like it’s coming under question. MAD is a terrible thought but it is at least clear to all sides concerned. It feels like the grey areas in the world are being tested right now and that’s when misjudgements can happen.

Someone did a study years ago and this turned out to be the most miserable day of the year - probably a combination of Christmas in the rear-view mirror, a long way to next holiday and lack of sunlight. (We’re talking on average here; I appreciate it is sunny today in Leicestershire.)

I’m more suspicious of parts of the Conservative Party than the party as a whole for this. More than one Conservative MP tried to take Paula Vannells to task for this, yet from the other hand came an honour. Given that she’s not exactly a wealthy donor*, it suggests more that the left hand doesn’t know what the right is doing. But even then, to me this just wasn’t high enough up the priority list for anyone to do anything about it. It was an inconvenience that government wanted to go away. They didn’t want to have to deal with the fallout of a scandal at the Post Office. It’s only happening now because of an excellently-made drama and a desperate party in an election year. *Just figured I’ve made this assertion but don’t know for sure.

Or - and I say this as a “for instance” rather than making a specific accusation - someone or some people consistently skimming small amounts into a separate place for their own use (maybe figuring that nobody would even notice), then realising they couldn’t say anything when all this came to light because they’d incriminate themselves. That said, the incident they showed where the shortfall kept doubling every time the woman tried to fix it following advice from the never-less-appropriately-named “helpline”, it wouldn’t surprise me if there were bugs as well.

One thing I’d like answered is why the numbers were changed. Ok, so there’s outside connection to Horizon possible and it seems that people at Fujitsu could alter the numbers at whim. So a question I have is why. Why change the numbers? Was there some sort of attempted fraud? Incompetence? People pissing around? Or just bugs in the software that were denied?

If you’re not looking forward to him being made club captain at Man Utd next season then going three from three for relegations, you have a heart of stone.

I think this is a really good idea. Make a few of them, set a price you’d like/need in our own mind, then try to flog them at something like a craft fair to see whether there’s interest at that price.

I can feel the regular Onion article being prepared as I type.

I wouldn’t watch it a second time.

It’s entertainment. You wouldn’t insist that an opera singer run their voice through real-time auto-tune just because it’s technology and you can get closer to automated perfection. At least I assume you wouldn’t.

Worth noting that this is entertainment, not climate science.

I think what we’re talking here to achieve this is for there to be accessible 4D replays that can be processed by AI either instantaneously or almost instantaneously. And that technology will need to be able to map across the pitch and judge things such as whether contact was too much contact (perhaps taking into account players’ weights), whether a player was an active offside, whether a player’s body shape was unnatural, and the like. Such a thing, if it existed, could then have to be programmable to particular leagues and adjustable for law changes. Possible? Maybe. In theory. The moment of celebration would have to change from “balling hitting net” to “referee awards goal”, because there would be a small delay even if it’s just the ref checking a device on his wrist - like there is with goal line technology, although we happily accept it in that scenario because the technology is there to resolve inherent ambiguity. I think we’re absolutely miles away from this right now though. Perhaps we can have AI calls for clear and obvious errors, once we’ve defined what these are, although even then the lines get blurred. Either way, it seems to me that it has to be repeatable AI rather than people sitting in a studio somewhere in real time. At which point it won’t be a “Video Assisted Referee” in anything resembling the format we have right now.

It’s quite simple for me, and it always has been. I want to celebrate when the ball hits the net. It’s not about technology or not - goal line technology is great and clearly appreciated on the pitch as well as the stands. But that’s precisely why I’ve always had concerns about VAR - not because of nasty, new, scary computers but because I’d seen TMO in rugby and what an absolute annoyance it was there. I was against VAR because of that. But now it’s implemented I think it’s even worse than I thought it would be. People are still just as upset over decisions, just different decisions, different scales. So people still have grievances over officiating and fans in the stadium can’t celebrate goals when the ball hits the net. In brief: Goal line tech = Great. DRS (cricket) = Good, as it fits the sport and is applied well. Hawkeye (tennis) = Great, similar to DRS, only faster. TMO (rugby) = Frustrating, even in a sport where there are more natural stoppages than football. VAR = Needs the Ol’ Yeller treatment. You may class that as Luddite. I think that’s very unfair.

Mate, you’ve done nothing but suggest that people who don’t want VAR are simply anti-technology for some pseudo-religious reason since we started debating it. You use the word “Luddites” repeatedly.

What is VAR if not presented as a perfect solution?

What do you call it?

Rejuvenation is a good word for it. The whole episode felt fresh.

Question: Let’s imagine for a moment that VAR will eventually reach the point of being both accurate and near-instantaneous, presumably through AI. Which it won’t, but let’s imagine it will. Why do we have to put up with it during development? Why can’t we just scrap it and wait only for the finished product?