SpacedX

Eadie? What?

Agree. I was astonished given the recent acclaim how impotent they were in the final third. The sluggish pace and the space afforded at this level however has allowed the likes of Vestergaard, Hamza and even Bouba to find their level again. Not technically great, but Ricardo looked like a breath of fresh air, it's glorious to see Monga run at a defence, Hamza has finally worked out how to time his tackles, Vestergaard can realise his Beckenbauer fantasies once more and wonderful to see Abdul's irrepressible enthusiasm dancing to ABBA at the end. Despite my dread pre-match really enjoyed tonight. And I thought the atmosphere was much improved too.

On my way down. I hate the way I get this feeling of utter dread a few hours before a match. Reminds me of the Levein era.

I do wish that they'd cut out the live feed to the inane cheering and whooping. Oh for the days of Jack King, Walter Cronkite and James Burke.

Fury Road...

Okoli has been quite solid so far.

You did say "all research jobs". But yes, I am inclined to agree.

Not true. AI is rapidly changing the landscape of research, but it's more likely to transform the role of researcher rather than eliminate it. Embracing AI as a tool to enhance human capabilities and focusing on developing the uniquely human skills needed to thrive in this new era will be key for postdoctoral researchers to succeed in the future. The future will involve human-AI collaboration. AI can automate repetitive and mundane tasks such as data analysis. pattern recognition and literature reviews and assist in the development of methodology. However, AI currently lacks human intuition, creativity, and ethical judgment, all of which are essential for tasks such as experimental design, interpreting complex real-world applied results, particularly in the behavioural sciences, and forming novel research questions. For the researchers of the future, it is imperative that they embrace AI leveraging AI tools to augment their work, focusing on skills that AI cannot yet replicate. AI tools can accelerate peer review and help scientists publish their research faster, ensuring that their findings are shared while they're still relevant and thus boosting research impact. However, currently, AI can’t truly improve itself in an autonomous, creative way and pointedly, it has no innate conception of what’s right or wrong, it processes probabilities as opposed to morals or deeper understanding.

The The UK Space Agency is to lose its executive agency status and be subsumed by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), a move that is expected to cut duplication and reduce bureaucracy but there is a danger that this will introduce less incentivised ways of working which tend to blight government departments which was the reason the agency was created in the first place. At a time when many other nations are founding their own, there are real fears that the dynamism and proactivity will be lost and we will fall behind in terms of capability, technology, research and initiative.

The somewhat disturbingly deranged and hysterical HarryDC, who was adamant that he was living in a totalitarian state and during lockdown there would be mass starvation because people were going to be denied access to a supermarket.

Agree. And arable farmers can make more profit from selling through farm shops and efforts to diversify than through supermarket sales. Although supermarkets offer large volumes and consistent sales, the farmer's share of the retail price is often very small. Conversely, farm shops obviously allow farmers to capture a larger portion of the profit margin by controlling the retail price and selling directly to the consumers. I use a nearby farmer's market and a local farm for doggie daycare. The popular narrative that labour is trying to destroy British farming is complete nonsense - it's simply another, albeit ill conceived method of raising tax. However, the timing was terrible with the horrendous levels of rainfall during the planting season in 2024 that ensued, and on the back of Tory policy that negatively impacted their industry, particularly due to changes in farm subsidies and Brexit-related issues. The phasing out of the EU's Basic Payment Scheme resulted in significant cuts in financial support combined with to post-Brexit labour shortages and rising costs. Defra also accelerated the tail-off of direct payments for the largest recipients and set the reduction on the first £30,000 of all payments at 76% with 100% reduction beyond that. These changes have added to the cost of producing food at a time when hard-pressed British farmers cannot absorb it, meaning either the supply chain or consumers will end up bearing the brunt. British family farms are already stretched to breaking point after a decade of tightening margins, cost inflation and going forward, the prevalence of extreme weather events. All this means that swathes of land will be lost to the developers as our farming community increasingly encounters diminishing returns and perceives a bleak future.

That's a hell of a stretch and simply not true. The irony being however, that much of the recent rhetoric coming from the government concerning in particular, asylum, boats arriving, smashing the gangs, and international study visas has clearly been to appease the populist voter gravitating to Reform and an attempt to stem the rise of nationalistic sentiment playing into the hands of the far right.

A Nod's as good as a Winks.

As @leicsmac recently sagely observed, the next words spoken on the lunar surface may very well be in Mandarin. https://www.space.com/astronomy/moon/chinas-lunar-lander-aces-touchdown-and-takeoff-tests-ahead-of-planned-2030-crewed-moon-mission-video

Ridiculous claim. Absolute nonsense.

That's the Apollo 8 crew now all sadly deceased. Of Apollo 13 Fred Haise is 91. "We do not realise what we have on Earth until we leave it" Jim Lovell.

He's certainly played like he's 90.

That first touch was pure Akinbiyi.

Great work by Winks there.

It was one example, and yes, that aspect of his game was exceptional. I can remember plenty of games in which his link play has been strong, which I was all that I was referring to from your examples. In terms of other areas of his game, he has without doubt been poor and yes for the price paid, he has not fulfilled expectations. Let's see how he performs this season.

Disagree. He's actually quite good at linking play at this level. A good example of this was away to Leeds in February 2024. Yes, he missed the chance to likely seal the three points when he put a clear chance wide, (he also had a goal incorrectly overruled). The capitulation from the team at the end was appalling but his link play had been exceptional nonetheless.

Wernher von Braun was indeed a member of the Nazi party, but he joined simply though expedience to get support and funding for his work. He despised Hitler and all that he ideologically stood for - however that could not be said for some of his counterparts that were covertly integrated into American society when they should have been in the dock at Nuremberg. He did not directly murder anyone. He had sleep-walked into a Faustian bargain—that he had worked with this regime without considering the darker implications of the Third Reich and the Nazi regime. As Technical Director at the Army Rocket Center at Peenemünde his work attracted more and more attention in higher levels. His refusal to join the party would have meant that he would have had to abandon his life's work. Of course he bears some responsibility for his own actions but in the case of concentration camp labour, there wasn’t much he could do to help. The Milgram experiment remains a landmark study in social psychology, raising important questions about obedience, authority, and individual responsibility. von Braun is condemned for being in the middle of that situation, witnessing the concentration camp labour personally, face to face, but powerless to effect change. He admitted visiting the plant at Mittelwerk on many occasions, and later referred to conditions at the plant as "repulsive", but he maintained throughout his life that he never personally saw any deaths or beatings. By 1944 he was certainly privy to the atrocities but he denied ever having visited the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp itself - and there is no evidence that he did, where 20,000 died from illness, beatings, hangings, and appalling working conditions. Yes the slave labour was being used - more people died though this that the actual V2 itself, but contrary to the claims of many, he was not a war criminal or a fascist. The slave labour was not at his behest or choosing and he certainly didn't preside over it as some imply, however he nonetheless took huge guilt, regret and remorse with him to his grave. Operation Paperclip was part of a broader strategy by the US to secure German scientific talent in the face of emerging Cold War tensions, and ensuring this expertise did not fall into the hands of the Soviet Union or other nations. The operation's legacy has remained controversial in subsequent decades, owing to the undeniable fact that the CIA did shelter individuals that were later found to have had involvement in war crimes and more sinister affiliation with the Nazi Party.

One of the reasons that particular event was so devastating was the lack of adequate warning systems in place across many coastal regions impacted in the Indian Ocean. Last night's earthquake occurred on the Kamchatka Peninsula which is on the Pacific ring of fire and subduction zones are prone to these immensely powerful megathrust earthquakes which can generate tsunamis. There are so many variables that can govern the severity of the latter ranging from the the amount of water displaced, the depth of the water at the source, and the local morphology/topography and bathymetry of the coastlines that are hit so it remains to be seen. A 1.2m wave has been reported off the coast of Oahu, Hawaii.

I recall our conversations last year on the whisky thread, so I feel somewhat complicit in this. Remember though, the joy of scotch is to savour - enjoy the nose and the after taste. It doesn't need to be to excess because that becomes a blur. Remember the Glenfiddich 15 I bought last Christmas? I still have half a bottle remaining. I've always regarded scotch as a winter luxury. I greatly enjoy walking the dog for miles over frosty fields and then stopping in at the local for a pint of stout and a cheeky dram of smokey/peaty Laphroaig. I have just come out of a very brutal consultation/redundancy process at work and I'm grateful to say that I survived it and am still in a job. Had a few pints the other night culminating in the top shelf and thought of you whilst supping the exquisite Glenlivet 12. I try to avoid drinking at home as much as possible because its so easy for it to become habitual and an evening ritual.