Sampson

Nice. The Expanse is really high on my to read list as well. Will probably tackle it next year.

I genuinely cba with the snarky comments and trying to turn it into a jumping off point for starting yet another discuss about immigration tbh. Genuinely think it must be utterly exhausting to be so obsessed with immigration that you search this stuff to get wound up enough to make snarky comments and be ultra cynical about such an innocuous poster.

*Sigh* Mate, that "are you really comparing x to y" an old fallacy that doesn't work. I'm very clearly, obviously and explicitly not comparing them in any moral or legal or judgemental way whatsoever. I was simply using obvious examples we're all aware of of how people's behaviour absolutely does change over years due to campaigns. You dont have to be so cynical of absolutely everything, it's just a poster.

I'm not being funny but isn't this exactly the kind of integration education of non-western immigrants people have been asking for? I know you have to be ultra cynical of everything on the internet but I'm sure this is just part of bigger campaign and I'm hazard to admit this on the internet, but surely its a good small step in the right direction? You don't change people overnight, but you can over years with the right education and campaigns (see smoking habits or seatbelt wearing habits as a simple of examples of campaigns, posters and public service announcements like that, all of which were also snided away as "I'm sure that'll sort it" at first).

Crazy to look back at JD Vance and Trump pressurising Zeleneskyy to sign essentially a surrender deal a couple of years ago saying Ukraine "doesn't have the cards" and how there were users on here saying Europe shouldn't be helping Ukraine because we're just wasting money on an inetivible loss given how phenomenally Ukraine keep managing to out-think and out-fight Russia. Genuinely hard to see Russia winning this war these days,

Easy to be cynical of things like this after I felt very underwhelmed, but I don't like how much society has regressed into ultra cynical teenager mindsets in the internet age, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt and say realistically it probably needs to be a full solar eclipse to be interesting. I don't think I'd have known its happening if it wasn't talked about. At the half second glance with my naked eye I couldn't really see anything and using some filter paper I could only really see a pale filtered crescent shape no different to seeing a crescent moon really. But when you see caveman paintings or hear stories of medieval Kings committing suicide believing the rapture was co,ing, it's obvious that it must be extremely noticeable with the naked eye if it's a genuine total eclipse. It's a bit like the northern lights, saw them in Scandinavia a few years ago was just a kind of faint green tinge which moved incredibly slowly and some whispy clouds that I probably wouldnt have noticed unless i really concentrated on it, but I when I pointed my phone camera at it the colours looked pretty good and I got some of the classic green lit up photos, but it was extremely underwhelming in person with the naked eye. As for "it reminds you what it means to be human", I absolutely agree that nothing can do that like natural phenomena can and it can feel genuinely cleansing, but I think a lot of people just let it pass them by unless there's a once in a lifetime event which you're told endlessly growing up is so awe inspiring that its never realistically going to live up to the hype. I guess it's the standard reminder that with all the day to day hustle and modern cynicism it's easy to forget that Great Britain is a phenomenally beautiful island and that you can instead easily go and take a break from it all and probably see more awe-inspiring sites that remind you what it is to be human walking the Leicestershire public right-of-ways, let alone going to the Lake District, Norfolk Broads, Welsh valleys or Scottish Highlands,

The American one? Same, I'm never really sure if Binface is actually all that funny, but that was a great bit of comic timing.

Wasn't that the point of the Thunderball back in the day? It was slightly less unlikely to win and would be around £700k jackpot instead, which is still lifechanging money for anyone.

This is one of my favourite videos Tom Scott has ever done I think on the Prince of Wales bridge. Really gives an amazing insight into the incredible scale and majesty and engineering of some parts of infrastructure.

Yeah, many of us feel it every day. Ive said before on here, but I think about death pretty much daily. I understand logically the "it will just be the same as before you were born" but it's the simple moments of going to the pub or a restaurant or playing board or card games or watching football with friends and family, or reading a good book, or the beauty of bird song, green hills and the sea lapping up on the shore or the feel of the wind on my face - just the idea of losing all the small joys in life causes my second brain in my gut to feel empty. One of the hardest things about modern life for me I think is just how incredibly unsocial modern culture has become. For most of human history you lived with your friends and family in a tribe and making friends and having meaningful social interaction was the easiest thing in the world- that's how our brains are wired to help us survive as pack animals, but making genuine long-term friendships that you spend timr with constantly as an adult today is stupidly hard. I think a lot of us wish we had more friends and human companship and hung out with the friends we do have more, but it's almost a shameful thing to admit as an adult nowadays.

I was going to say Planescape: Torment, but I replayed the original 2 or 3 years ago and it was still as amazing as ever, and I think youd lose some of the charm of the old AD&D if yoh remade it into D&D 5e like Baldurs Gate 3.

Fofana, Soyuncu and Maguire all had one great season although the played for more than that they were never as good in other seasons.

We couldn't afford to buy Lookman, there was know should've been with us longer about it, we weren't able to.

Yes it's a great book. That Norwegian teenager who got found guilty tge other day and the BBC article about how people linked to the Iranian government are hiring teenage boys to do hits for them across Northern Europe by making it seem like a video game mission by sending video game like maps and instructions also reminded me of Operation Bounce House.

Haha, no it was actually a conspiracy theory about the US being behind these Morrocons going into Ceuta pushed by notable former Republicans (including Majorie Taylor Green), but on further investigation, it was based on very misleading evidence so I deleted it.

edit: nevermind. Pretty sure I got caught out by fake news,

No, I think it's an incredibly recent thing, like only really started since this government got elected 2 years ago. Before tuat, prevailing thought was always that you save your big ideas for the election cycle and don't give your opposition ideas. It's not a left-right thing either as the Greens are just as bad at it now.

BTW when did it become common place for opposition parties to announce policies not even halfway through an election cycle? The common knowledge until incredibly recently was always that opposition parties didn't say anything until the election cycle and their manifesto so other parties wouldn't steal their ideas. The last year or so Reform, Greens and Tories have all been constantly announcing "policies" as almost press announcements knowing full well they'll never have to enact them.

Sure, but I mean it was specifically very common to call someone a "boff" (not a boffin) when I was school instead of a nerd or a geek. But never heard "boff" used outside of Leicestershire.

Is boff a very Leicestershire word? It was the standard insult for a smart kid when I was in school and used way more than calling someone a nerd or geek for example, but I've never heard of it used since I moved out Leicestershire and googling it I find very few references to it as general British slang.

It was a microcosm of the social media outrage age in 24 hours. I think it was a case that the 247 news cycle quickly got all over it because its an easy way to whip up division and wanted the "here they come, flooding our European streets again" doom mongering narrative, but the Spanish authorities acted efficiently and quickly and so killed the story pretty quickly. It made the Italian and Danish PMs look a bit silly really and like they wanted to whip up division rather than solve the problem with their allies and neighbours.

Mars isn't actually round like Earth, Venus or the other rocky planets, but shaped more like a rugby ball.

It's only a couple of months ago after the locals that people were predicting this to be close.. Reform's vote seems to have unravelled quite quickly.

Didn't thing UEFA would have the balls, but glad they di this statement. Glad we're finally standing up against the Americanisation and American tycoon capitalism-isation of European culture for a change.

Just seen. The wild fires in Suffolk. Was only a matter of time before the wildfires come to the UK