MonkeyTennis?

I There are loads I would recommend (The Institute, Bag of Bones, Mr Mercedes, Billy Summers are all good, relatively recent jumping off points, and all quite different) - however, I would say, try his short story collection You Like it Darker, and turn to 'Danny Coughlin's Bad Dream' which is a novella about a guy who dreams about a crime, and what happens when he tries to report it. I just couldn't put it down.

Digger, with Tom Cruise, is way better than the reviews suggest.

We've been having a bit of a LA noir movie season at my house. Watched Nightcrawler at the weekend, and agree its worth watching but not perfect. The highlight so far has been Collateral - even better then I remembered and it still looks amazing.

Our Man in Havana is good, but it's more a sleazy satire than a proper spy novel. It's the Greene book I like the best. The End of the Affair is clever (it's about an affair, but also about our relationship with God) but perhaps not a huge amount of fun. For a really old school spy novel, Eric Ambler's The Mask of Dimitrios is a banger. The inspiration for Le Carre's stuff, I think.

Some potentially good people on this series but it's really weak again, just like the last series was as well. I'm starting to think this is done now. Tasks are too weird, the patter is tired. A shame.

Well, I think the underlying assumptions here that 1) the public don't want to shift to a zero carbon economy and, 2) doing so is a risk to national security, are both false. I think if you look around people are buying electric cars and getting solar panels fitted in droves because it is so economical. Frankly, I regret that I bought a petrol car last year and that I don't have much roof space, because I see friends selling energy back to the grid and running their cars for pennies. If this is 'net-stupid-zero', bring it on. Then I know a few people who work in this sector and they are largely running local businesses installing solar panels etc. That is clearly good for the economy and employment more generally, but also it totally increases our energy security at a personal and national level. And then I think even the most sceptical people look at the summer just gone, and the fact that it is 25 effing degrees today, in September, and think, maybe we don't need to be burning that oil.

I see, but even the atomic bomb was developed to bomb other nations. It served a function, however terrible, that people could understand. Whats the stated functional objective or purpose of AI? (And, IMO, its pretty nuts that the closest technological comparison that comes to mind is nuclear weapons!!) If its 'to gain power' (which I suspect it may be) that's scary - but power by doing what? Power how?

The things I don't get is, what's the endgame that these AI companies are working towards? What do they think or hope it will do? Most technological developments throughout history were trying to solve a problem or achieve a specific goal (even if they end up serving a completely different purpose). With AI we get some weird pronouncements about how it could cure diseases and solve maths problems, but we also hear lots of stuff about it circumventing cyber security, requiring crazy resources, stealing jobs, designing bioweapons, driving people mad. So what's the vision? Is there a positive future that people are trying to realise by advancing develpment of AI? I find it genuinely strange that this technology is coming into being without any clearly defined or discussed purpose.

I have some disturbing news about the vast continent of Greenland...

If you are not able to see it in 70mm IMAX (and who is, really, in the UK, with so few screens?), I would say that Xplus at Showcase is a strong alternative. The screen is nice and big, but the sound is pretty much the best I have ever encountered. Xplus is certainly as good as digital IMAX (I saw Interstellar in various formats, including at the BFI IMAX, but Xplus worked best). Personally I thought The Odyssey was a total masterpiece.

Eh? He's going to resign from his job, then stand again for the same job? What?

I think it's because 'Labour will raise taxes' was (and has always been) a key Tory attack line, and much of the election was fought over cost-of-living concerns, so promising not to raise income taxes and prioritising growth were both ways that Labour sought to reassure centrist type voters. I think Starmer has been alright (yeah, I know, one for the unpopular opinions thread) but I agree this was a key error: By backing themselves into a corner over income tax, they've ended up increasing taxes on business, which makes the growth they wanted harder to realise. Perhaps Burnham can find a way round it?

I travel into Leicester almost every day on that line. The new Aurora trains EMR have been rolling out have loads of electrical issues and keep breaking down. It's one of them involved, so it could possibly be a fault. Awful.

Oddly enough its such an unedifying shambles that I think Starmer has come out of this looking better than any of the alternatives (Appreciate that may not be the majority view!)

https://youtu.be/f_bKjZeJBBI?si=YIVkX_mCaD_ZKsFO I am looking forward to The Odyssey but I'm not sure about the thick New York/Boston accents everyone seems to have in this new trailer. What's that about?