No, but incentivise people to undertake regular training, by increasing insurance premiums after 5yrs which would then ratchet up by 10% per annum afterwards and are reset after completing the training

Errrrrr….. how about incentivising people by reducing their policies in a meaningful way if they undertook re testing? People would trip over themselves because as it stands it’s a license to make up figures and print money.

Bad news for Alex Garland, bad news for anyone who wanted to see this film in the cinema over here but good news for me because I never get anyway…Annihilation is coming to netflix in a few days. From wikipedia

The film was released by Paramount Pictures in the United States on February 23, 2018.

Due to a poorly received test screening, David Ellison, a financier at Paramount, became concerned that the film was “too intellectual” and “too complicated”, and demanded changes to make it appeal to a wider audience, including making Portman’s character more sympathetic and changing the ending. Producer Scott Rudin sided with Garland in his desire to not alter the film, defending the film and refusing to take notes. Rudin had final cut.

*Contains spoilers and clips of violence from the film*

…added to my list. Love Mike and Jay.

yokaiser

So would you pay to resit your test every ten years?

Would I re-sit my test every ten years? Sure, why not. It would do no harm to brush up on the fundamentals. Would I pay? Depends how much. If I failed would I lose my licence? Go back to a provisional? What impact would this have on  my insurance or my job?

It would also have the side effect of reducing pollution, traffic jams, accidents, insurance premiums, wear and tear and improve the public transport system.

I think this is a stretch, especially insurance and traffic jams.

rickon

So I’m looking to get a very comfy SUV/4×4 for driving to work.

newrobdob

Why not a normal car?

I treat her differently from my son because they are different people with different personalities.

Different personalities or different genders?  This is all well and good but you’re still dodging the question as to whether the same rules apply to girls as they do to boys.

They have different personalities. How much of that is down to gender, I can’t say but given how stereo-typically some of there behavior falls neatly into gender stereotypes, I’d say a fair bit. I can give you examples as much as I find it somewhat uncomfortable to discuss something like that on a forum. We’ve had that thread several times recently but I’m happy to go through the motions again if you want to start a new one.

For the second time now, that’s your inference. “A” vs “ALL”, I literally quoted your own words there.

If you want to give me the benefit, you can re-read my earlier post in the context of me thinking about raising a four year old boy as a well rounded person and not a slave to his emotions. You can chose to be charitable in your interpretation, or not, as with your initial reaction. Either way I do not care and my conscience is clear.

Cougar

I didn’t miss it, I agreed with it (and probably should’ve said so). It was just totally contradicted by the rest of that sentence.

It didn’t contradict it – you ignored half the post then ascribed the worst possible intentions to the rest of it. We all control or suppress our emotions constantly, all day every day.  The idea that controlling your emotions, or ignoring them in the short term to achieve something is now somehow taboo?

There’s a world of difference between acting your age and acting like a “man.” Why is this gender-specific?

What’s the thread title again?

I genuinely don’t see how “stop crying” is encouragement to discuss emotions. Apologies if I’ve missed something here.

Do you have kids Cougar? There’s a time and a place for discussing emotions. Mid tantrum doesn’t work very well in my experience.

I did, just then. Does the same apply? What would you tell a hypothetical daughter in the same situation?

Hypotheitcal daughter? My daughter will do just fine. I treat her differently from my son because they are different people with different personalities.

Not quite sure why it’s “A” man but “ALL” women, mind.

Because the only man I can actually try to influence is my son. I can quote platitudes and cliches all day long but I probably can’t change anyone else. But you took this to be somehow indicative of me thinking the opposite about all women.

He quoted it and commented on it. Were you trying to prove you could do even more “horseshit”?

Did he indeed. Go back and read it again, there’s a good boy.

Cougar

That’s a candidate for the biggest load of horseshit I’ve ever read on STW, and we have posters who have their own hashtags.

Funny how you managed to completely miss or ignore the part of my post which says “Raising boys and men to suppress their emotions and never discuss how they feel is wrong “.

Being emotional and being a “functional man” are not mutually exclusive and if you think otherwise then you’re part of the problem. And suggesting that men aren’t real men unless they’ve been taught to “control their emotions” is monumentally patronising.

Cougar, I used a colloquialism in a normal way, I didn’t think it would prompt you to lose your shit. Allow me to give you an example of what I meant. If my son hurts himself or is sad for some reason I won’t punish him, tell him not to be sad or tell him to man up, I’ll ask him what’s wrong. However, when he’s rolling around on the floor of his nursery group screaming and crying because he doesn’t want to go in I’ll tell him to stop acting like a baby and go join his friends in nursery.  Hopefully this approach will lead to him being able to discuss his emotions but also be able to control them.

How do you feel about women who blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Who said anything about women? We were discussing grown men crying. Saying something about A MAN does not automatically infer the opposite is true or even relevant regarding ALL WOMEN.

edlong

people who think that displays of emotion, when made by men, should be met with derision.. should be met with derision.

If anyone thinks I’m just being a nob for the sake of it, here’s something that happens (partly) because boys are brought up being told it’s not “manly” to show emotion, and in particular “big boys don’t cry”. Well, maybe they don’t, but some of them kill themselves instead. Yeah, I know, boo **** hoo.

https://www.samaritans.org/about-us/our-research/facts-and-figures-about-suicide

With respect ed, they aren’t the same thing. Grown men cry at soccer because they invest a lot of their lives in the teams to the point where it forms part of their identity. They refer to the team’s achievements as “we” or “us”, they wear the team colours to inform strangers as to their allegiances and perhaps most importantly, they develop rivalries and conflict with other teams. When they cry it’s because they’ve completely lost perspective as to the importance of the event in relation to their own lives.

Depression and suicide on the other hand, well there are seemingly almost limitless contributing factors on a variety of spectrums that can lead to, contribute to or trigger those. Anything and everything from ill health, bad luck, failed relationships, lonliness to hormone irregularities caused by sub traumatic brain injuries in earlier life and probably many combinations of the above and more.

Raising boys and men to suppress their emotions and never discuss how they feel is wrong, but raising boys to learn to control or even ignore their emotions is essential to make functioning men who can actually “man up” should the need arise for whatever reason.

I thought you meant elsewhere – from my memory comments seem to be universally positive on here. People say ‘are they gutless’ and everyone says ‘no, they’re great’.

Er, that’s not universally positive. But, to be clear you’re not taking my bet?

That would be great but anecdotally it seems hard to achieve. Most people seem to get mid 50s on longer runs from small cars. My dad’s 1.4 golf TSI did mid 50s on a long run and mid 40s in their small town. They just changed it for a Fiesta 1.0 ecoboost and on their first few town trips it recorded 28mpg.

I’ll consistently get 55+ on the flat with roof rails, bike rack etc in the Focus. My feeling is the 6 speed box helps this. I got 49mpg driving to Dublin and back (300ish miles), that’s back roads, B roads, motorways and city driving and I overtook everything in front and treated the speed limit like a target everywhere. Our average MPG when we lived in the city was 39. Now living in the country with a bit of city driving the overall average hovers around the mid to high 40s.

People are now conditioned to think diesels = green and economical. Petrols = inneficient and polluting. Just look at the absolute  shite that gets spouted when someone asks about a small displacement petrol engine.

Never seen anyone spout shit about these – where are you looking?

Since I’d have to use the search function you’ll have to make it worth my while – how about you pay me 50p for every negative or ill informed comment I find about small petrol turbos?

stevextc

But its not the same. In addition to trucks diesel is a good choice for anyone that does 95% of their driving doing long motorway miles whilst small petrol engined car’s are not. It’s a fundamental of the energy that is stored in diesel vs 95 or 98 octane…

If you did 95% motorway driving get the bus. Or train. Or move out of your home at the motorway service station…but here’s the thing a 1.0 petrol can do 60mpg on the motorway and work in the city.

The other half changed to a 2L petrol and finds it “under powered” after the 2.2L diesel…

So you’re saying a smaller capacity (and I presume) non turbo  petrol feels less powerful compared to a 200cc larger, turbo charged diesel?

Perhaps supply wouldn’t be an issue if diesels were limited to appropriate applications (lorrys, vans, trucks, boats)

Those are types of vehicles not applications as such.

Diesel is applicable to towing heavy loads and coating on motorways

Pedantry just for the sake of pedantry and yet still agreeing with my point. Impressive STW’ing. Do you think I didn’t realise they are types of vehicles or did you just miss the point that generally the application of those vehicles is to move heavy loads? Gah.

I’m not looking at Autotrader, I’m looking at the roads when I go there, which is often.

Right, don’t look at any kind of overview…just base your opinion on what you see when you visit your mother in law. Seems legit.

That’s because it wasn’t apparent how much of an impact diesel was having on towns and cities until recently.

But …..if the Americans knew about it “way back” as you put it, then that doesn’t add up either.

My guess would be the development of direct injection petrol making then possible, and the anti-diesel feeling brought on by DPF/EGR/DMF failure worries. That’s what started this thing, not NOx levels. The manufacturers would have seen an opportunity to sell something with added value over the standard boring 1.6 NA petrol.

In that case improving diesels would have been the correct move. People are now conditioned to think diesels = green and economical. Petrols = inneficient and polluting. Just look at the absolute  shite that gets spouted when someone asks about a small displacement petrol engine. Now manufacturers have to reverse that conditioning. Somehow they managed to produce petrol engines that now reliably produce 150bhp+ from a litre, similar torque, 60mpg in a few years of development.

molgrips

I’m really not sure that’s true at all. I’ve certainly never been anywhere that’s the case. It’s not the case in the USA even. Such things are certainly more common, but the days of big NA V8s and four speed autos are gone.

Go on Autotrader usa and take a look. If you search for a diesel ford all you’ll see is pages and pages of giant pickup trucks. You can search by cylinders and again you’ll see that 6 and 8 cylinder engines outnumber 4 cylinders hugely. For example 4 cylinder Audi returns two pages. 6 or more cylinder Audi (petrol) returns 12 pages. You couldn’t even buy a 1.0 ecoboost focus there till last year but we’ve had them since 2010 or 2011.

But a 3.0 petrol engine is for people who want to go fast and don’t care about fuel. A 2.0 TDI is for people who do care about fuel and want to go just fast enough. You cannot ignore the fact that a 3.0 petrol emits much more CO2 than a TDI.

No a 4.0 or 5.0 or 6.0 petrol engine is for people who want to go fast. A 3.0 petrol engine is for people who can’t afford a V8.

CO2 is still important, as NOx is.

Now it is. Nox didn’t seem to be an issue to the public until 5 or 6 years ago.

 The small eco-boost type petrol engines, they are a huge advance. The amount of engineering in those is comparable (or greater) than a typical diesel, for better or worse. My Dad’s Golf had an air/water intercooler for example you don’t get those on standard diesels.

I’ve been raving about them for must be four years (I’ve owned one for three). Every time I brought it up three years ago people (including you) instantly poo-poo’d the idea because look, I can get 65+ mpg out of my ancient diesel. Why did manufacturers suddenly start investing in small capacity petrol engines though? Why didn’t they just spend that money on diesels? What did they see that led them down the development path toward microscopic petrol engines with variable geometry low intertia turbos? I’m cynical.

I disagree. Veg oil for fuel is simply not an option and never will be – nothing to do with technology, it’s to do with the supply of fuel. We can’t grow enough oil seed rape, nowhere near. People are working on other sources of biofuel, and yes I agree that it needs much more investment. But it’s not really a car company issue since the fuels will work in most engines with a little tweaking.

Can’t supply everyone with veg but what if was just for a certain sector of the market? Perhaps supply wouldn’t be an issue if diesels were limited to appropriate applications (lorrys, vans, trucks, boats) and much more suitable petrol engines had been favoured in small passenger cars instead of being taxed out.

molgrips

Not sure you appreciate what’s happening here. The TDI produces 140bhp because that’s all they want it to produce. It’s NOT because that’s the maximum of which it’s capable. They’ve just increased the economy. The marketers have decided 140 is a sensible amount, so that’s where it stays. People who buy large petrol engines on the other hand don’t care about economy, so they have been increasing the power steadily.

Molgrips, I’ve noticed that whenever you’re debating, whether it’s intentional or not you regularly suggest that your sparring partner doesn’t understand your argument or point of view. I completely understand the point that engines come in different states of tune and that 140bhp is not the maximum possible bhp for a 2.0 tdi but it’s moot to my point because prior to common rail, turbo diesels weren’t in their maximum state of tune, nor is any production petrol engine.

In 20 years vag went from a pd turbo diesel that produced 140bhp and 173 g/km to a CR making 140bhp and 117 g/km. But we know that the test is completely unrepresentative of real world driving conditions and that manufacturers cheated the tests so what what are those figures worth?

And you can’t compare a 2.8 petrol with a 2.0 TDI, they’re created for totally different purposes and sold to different people. This is not a technological issue.

They are sold to different people because they’ve been marketed to different people and that’s targeted based on the fact that there’s 60p per litre tax on petrol and the ved was designed to incentivise people to buy diesels. Everywhere else in the world a 3.0 petrol engine is a perfectly normal generic, basic standard engine to put in a 5 door saloon car. We’ve been conditioned to think they are some kind of sexy high performance toy because of punitive taxes.

You know they still emit less CO2 don’t you? And in any case – diesel didnt’ get a tax break – low CO2 got a tax break. The lowest still being petrol hybrid. I feel your rant lacks focus somehow

Diesels did effectively get a tax break because co2 alone was targeted. I  agree, perhaps my rant isn’t consistent, perhaps I’m argueing too many points or trying to join up too many dots but we don’t know where vegetable oil fueled turbo diesels could have gotten to because manufacturers shut down that line of inquiry chasing pointless metrics that incentivized them to build cars that met unrealistic tests and still poisoned us. Now the public is cottoning on to what manufacturers likely knew all along, so now we have to ditch diesels and buy petrol hybrids. If they’d incentivized people 20 years ago to buy petrols and developed petrol engines to their optimal potential we wouldn’t be having this discussion.

The buying public in Europe have been piggy in the middle here while legislators and manufacturers pissed about and made up the rules as they went along.

But what about economy and emissions? They can more or less choose they power they want – they choose the power levels according to what the market wants, not what’s technically possible.

Yes but the upshot slight increase in economy, less co2, but more dangerous particulates. Take a Skoda Superb as a suitably bland example. 2001 PD engine 2.0 tdi, 140bhp, 236lbs ft . Same year 2.8 petrol engine 196bhp, 207lbs ft. Fast forward almost 20 years and the 2.0 tdi still produces 140bhp, 250lbs ft. It produces less bhp, and is slower 0-60 than a 20 year old normally aspirated petrol engine.

Yes the diesels are more fuel efficient but they are still heavy smelly engines that belch out soot and particulates. What was the net gain in tax breaks to get everyone into diesels to then suddenly start to tax them out of them?

<div class=”bbp-reply-author”>mc
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jimjam, your hilux won’t manage 80+bhp per litre though.

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Well no but my point was old diesels will run on anything.

It’s my understanding that whilst veg oil could be used it requires heating. Biodiesel on the other hand is fine. The big issue is with DPFs and active regen resulting in unburned oil coating the cylinder walls, ending up in the sump then eventually polymerising turning your engine oil in to jelly.

Heating isn’t a big issue, you can buy inline fuel heaters to adapt older diesel to run on straight vegetable oil if you live in colder climates.

CR also allows fuel to be injected in the exhaust stroke to pass hydrocarbons to the catalyst in the DPF to heat it up enough to burn the ash off. Also not very possible without CR. It definitely made them more efficient. I had an old school VW TD engine for a while with mechanical indirect injection which would run briliantly on veg oil. Only did about 45mpg though as compared to 62mpg or so in the PD, and it was noisy as hell. The PD engine has 50% more HP too. And CR are even better still.

I’m not denying that CR was an improvement. Apologies as I’m not going to google this to back it up, but iirc the first generation CR engines didn’t really show any great improvement over the generation of tdi engines they replaced. Example, Toyota replaced the 2.4 tdi in the Hilux with the 2.4 d4d, producing almost exactly the same power and torque. And there were other similar examples. Yes they may have evolved over time to the point where today, 20 years on, they are significantly more powerful, more refined and more efficient but with the exception of heavy duty applications there’s a petrol engine that will do the job better.

I feel as though engineering common rail egr dpf adblue diesels to make clean efficient diesels was an evolutionary dead end that could have been solved by cutting tax on petrol.

>ads678

Yeah, just wondered why we didn’t go more for the biofuels, not necessarily used chip fat but proper stuff manufactured to replace diesel but it seem mc answered me with some science.

The reason (or another reason) bio diesel didn’t make it as a fuel source was the move to common rail injection. Around 1997 diesel engine design changed to be more like petrol engines in that they atomized the fuel at very high pressure before combustion. Vegetable oil was unsuitable or less suitable for this than straight diesel.

Tinfoil hat time – I had a lengthy rant on here a long time ago about this and how performance gains in diesels seemed negligible, or certainly not that great. Perhaps common rail was invented to make diesels cleaner, perhaps it was to make them more powerful, I don’t know but I don’t really understand or see any huge performance benefits. Older diesels like my Hilux still run fine on straight vegetable oil.

Trimix

But where would you rather be when you need the police, hospitals, security guards, rule of law and modern laws if the potential for risk turns real.  Not North Africa for a start.

Exactly this.

allthegear

Homosexuality is illegal in Morocco, too. So far as I remember, I didn’t get arrested when I was riding around the country last year.

Did you go to any gay bars? Did you express your homosexuality or show open signs of affection toward someone of the same sex?

Any country with such backward and oppressive laws should be boycotted.

Is there any reason you can’t just tell them you’re married? No idea how I would go about proving it if asked when away from home.

The problem would be that if push came to shove, they’ve got you and it seems that countries with stupid laws like this like to make examples of foreigners.

GrahamS

Just follow the money.

The NRA reportedly spent over $5 million on lobbying in 2017.

I’ve heard it said before (and a quick google seems to confirm it) that $5 million doesn’t represent a lot in terms of money spent in the states on political lobbying. For context “Big Pharma” spends $240 million lobbying politicians each year, according to google. It’s likely that the NRA’s $5 million doesn’t really buy much, and that the reality is that gun ownership is just a core issue for a certain cross section of voters that it’s toxic to meddle with on some level.

There’s no short answer – it depends on the model and the variant.  If you buy a previous gen Audi you may well be able to fit generic VAG or Skoda or Seat service items and parts. If you buy a 2018 Audi R8 it probably won’t use Skoda brake discs or oil filters. I’d love to find out that it does though.

jambalaya

@jimjam that was my point on “smuggling”  the UK for its part currently just turns a blind eye for the sake of peace in Ireland. We could just do the same once we leave. May says she will do more and work with the EU but for me you can interpret her words as meaning we can just keep doing the same post Brexit. We won’t put up a border.

The technological solution is obviously little more than that – we’ll put up some cameras, maybe not switch them on and not bother to fix them when they are inevitably broken. At the minute both countries turn a blind eye because citizens have dual citizenship and freedom of movement under the GFA. There’s also a huge amount of regulatory alignment since both countries are in the EU. There’s no giant regulatory loophole which could create a blackmarket too big to ignore. What happens if Turkey join the EU and Turkish citizens just use Ireland as a back door to the UK?

Cross border communities are just that – communities which span both sides of the border. The long term political subtext was obviously to increase cross border bodies, increased regulatory allignment and co-operation, so cross border trade, work, hospitals, ambulances, even policing down the line to the point where there’s little or no distinction which side of the border you’re on. Brexit will likely throw a spanner in the gears for a lot of people unless it’s an Island Ireland which makes perfect sense from our POV because it changes nothing for people in NI and ROI and it’s what the majority of people in NI voted for.

Bloody STW.

Solid grey or dark green colour. Because pictures are distracting when I’m working in photoshop and I am almost 40.

I was speaking to a chap who lives in a new house built onthe border. Front door in NI, back door in the republic. gonna be tricky for him

Were you speaking to my neighbour?? What county? I’ve mentioned the chap who built his house on the site of the old British Customs house…..probably not ideal either.

This stuff from Screwfix is really effective.

Yeah but what if all the big rough tough tradies in the queue laugh ?

junkyard

unfortunately the Ulster plantation was such a success that 400 years later their offspring remain the most loyal of all the British to the crown…would imagine they would declare war on us and Ireland if we “leave them” to a united Ireland

I think there would be less than 10,000 people who would be genuinely sympathetic to that. Probably less the 5,000 in reality and maybe 100 – 500 actual loyalist terrorists. But the thing is there would be no need to change anything from a NI perspective. Stormont could still govern (or not) the six counties, British/Irish citizens could still retain their chosen identities and everyone in NI could still avail of billions in aid from the EU.

NI voted remain. So NI citizens would be getting exactly what the majority of NI voters wanted. They’d be remaining.

jambalaya

TJ you should like this piece. Bighlights how incompetent May and Hammond (delay/lack of no deal prep funding) have been in managing the negotiations. Sky said yesterday how the government now acknowledge their acceptance of the EU’s “scheduling” of talks has been a mistake (obvious from the beginning to anyone with half a brain)

The EU has us bent over a barrel

From that article “Germany and France have decided that now is the time for confrontation. Legal text in the withdrawal agreement will be uncompromising and will allow no leeway for a preferred UK technical solution concerning the Irish border. …The EU is pushing the UK border into the Irish Sea. It is the only solution that will avoid a “hard” border on the island of Ireland. Full regulatory alignment or nothing. ….The de-facto break up of the UK should be intolerable to all, not just the DUP.”

Curious as to how other forum users feel about that statement? I understand why Northern Irish unionists would feel aggrieved, they might feel less British if they were subject to greater regulatory allignment with the EU/ROI (although they are happy to diverge from UK laws if it persecutes gays, atheists or Nationalists) but how does the average English, Scottish or Welsh person feel? Do you care? Northern Ireland is just a money pit for the UK economy and it’s heavily reliant in EU funding.

A hard border would certainly result in some resurgence in terrorist activity and cost millions to police. Conversely a Island Ireland customs border would only make the whole island more attractive to investors and and it could be huge for tourism, one of the biggest industries.

I’ve said before and it’s contentious, the trouble is that too often we’re too scared to stop that one person – on a bus, in a sports crowd, racist comments in a pub…… and as a group we have to grow a pair and not let it go unchallenged.

I know the counter – they might punch you, they might have a knife, and of course use discretion, but simply walking away because it’s a bit hard makes behaviour like this become more normal.

Yes yes, I’ve been that person too on occasion and I agree. I was actually thinking about this today after admonishing 3 scrotes for playing soccer in a shop doorway. It got me thinking and it’s not obvious why people don’t act but it’s logical – youths and general **** don’t get up to badness alone. There’s usually at least two, and their company emboldens them. Also, a teenager or young adult doesn’t consider the consequences of their actions the way an older person does and this makes them potentially more dangerous. This is probably part of why people get stabbed for intervening in trivial issues.

then i see this kind of thing and I despair for humanity.

Well try and weigh one against the other for a bit of balance. Don’t despair.

Why now, especially given the limited resources and general miserable time for the emergency services. Can’t get my head around this one at all.

Brexit.

Based on what figures?

Obviously I don’t have the metrics. It’s certainly my impression that things have slowed down a lot over the last month or so in terms of posts and new threads. Or is the forum slow down caused by heavy traffic? The days of seeing your new thread vanish off page 1 in an hour or less certainly seem to be long gone. Could be selective myopia on my part, am I wrong?

The future for younger generations could look grim as obesity levels are rising. Lack of exercise and bad diets take their toll. But that’s a discussion for another day.

Well actually, that’s a pressing issue for right now, if not this exact thread. Diabetes and obesity related illnesses are going to destroy health care and/or cripple the economies of countries which provide it to their citizens. our elders deserve care and respect in later life but if we don’t figure out a way to get people in their 20s and 30s to eat healthily and get off their arses there’s going to be chaos.

Still very slow for me, also the old version of the forum used to have a function whereby if you rollover the time of post/freshness it would give you the last poster’s name so you could see clearly who had replied, or rather, if it was you’re own reply you’re looking at.

Of course, off the shelf forum layouts have the thread starter under the thread title and the name of the latest user replying opposite but I guess that would limit advertising real estate or make it look too much like a normal forum and that would drive away people who don’t want avatars…although most people appear to have been driven away anyway….

slackalice

Errr… help me out here OP, in what way is that article interesting? What is it actually saying about death? All I’ve read is some pretty graphs and a vague call for increased provision of palliative care.

Thanks slackalice, I was just about to post something similar.  “BBC article” was enough to make me skeptical and and as you say, nothing interesting, some graphs and a statement of the obvious. If anyone wants to listen to a genuinely interesting discussion about the issues raised in the article take a listen to this podcast with Frank Ostaseki and Sam Harris. Ostaseski is a Buddhist teacher, international lecturer and a leading voice in end-of-life care. In 1987, he co-founded of the Zen Hospice Project, the first Buddhist hospice in America. In 2004, he created the Metta Institute to provide innovative educational programs and professional trainings that foster compassionate, mindfulness-based care.

https://samharris.org/podcasts/the-lessons-of-death/

Also on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=es-yJoXEiXA&t=2s

retro83

They already are apps on my Freesat HD box, so the implementation is not a problem for me personally. Guess smart TVs will roll out apps shortly too if they haven’t already.

But the whole reason I like netflix and spotify is that I pay for two things and pretty much all the TV, films and music I want to consume are available.

If I suddenly have to pay for HBO, Disney, Sony, Fox as separate entities it becomes a lot less appealing.

Fair enough if they want to make content exclusively available a fortnight early on the HBO channel, hardcore fans will pay to get that early access to GOT or whatever. But taking it off netflix etc completely is a total dick move IMHO.

I think we’re just in a transition period between old delivery methods and new ones and I think more access is better than less. I understand where you’re coming from but tbh there aren’t that many big media corporations out there when you see through the company names. I don’t think we’ll see content fractured into millions of platforms, or if we do we’ll probably see our tv’s become search engines navigating between content suppliers but it’ll all look the same from our interface.

Game of Thrones is always my go-to example because I was happy to buy it from itunes until I caught up to the broadcasts. if I wanted to see the latest episodes I had the choice of either buying sky, or pirating. If the latest episodes were on itunes I would by them on itunes. If it was on Netflix I would watch it on Netflix, if I could get it via HBO online I would pay for that – basically if there’s something I really want to see ASAP I’ll happily pay for it rather than wait for some dodgy quality upload.

IMO digital media is going to fragment over the next few years as the content creators take control of their own delivery and cut out the middle men. Rumour is that HBO will not sign any new on-line distribution contracts and will roll out their own platform to country’s as  current contracts expire, I think Disney is planning the same. Expect all the other studios to follow suit.

God that really is braindead.  If they start doing that, all it means is I will go back to piracy which is easier and free.  Greedy ****.

It depends how it’s implemented. Instead of dongles and websites it’ll be apps on your smart tv so once they become better integrated it’ll be little different from browsing channels.

Given such border tech doesn’t yet exist, I doubt it. And given that it must consist of at least some hardware on the border, what happens when the PIRA decide to remove it at night time?

It’s not even that. The nature of life on the border is such that almost everyone (no hyperbole) is involved in something “illegal” at some level. Virtually every house on the ROI  side of the border has a northern car to avail of cheaper car tax (registered in someone else’s name) and virtually everyone on the NI side of the border comes across to get cheaper fuel which they “smuggle” back into the UK and the farmers on both sides seem to be running a million scams. When you consider that many border crossing look like this

you get an idea why it it’ll be hard to implement, never mind protect when every local will want to destroy it. The PSNI don’t really venture anywhere near the border as you need serious local knowledge to know what side you are on at any given time so they won’t be protecting any ANPR cameras either.

So you need to close these roads and install military checkpoints on main roads or everyone will just use back roads, obscure their plates or vandalise the cameras.

I think my guitar might have developed a slight warp/crack in the neck. Can it be saved by one of these luthiers you all speak of or would it be an uneconomical repair?

reports jimjam for being a traitor – would have done the same were it an option open to me.

I’d be gone in a shot if I had somewhere to go. ROI would be high on the list.

The state machinery of Ireland, especially in a remote rural area, feels like an old car who’s engine has developed a serious knock. You know it’s going to have a catastrophic terminal failure at some point in the near future, you’re just not sure when. Saying that, it’s hard not to admire it’s resilience as it just keeps on trucking. I now live so close to the border I can see it, and both my wife and I are cross border workers. If Brexit results in any kind of border it’ll create a shit storm here.

Mixed emotions.

where did you go jimjam?

I went to the EU. You should smell the air here, it smells like…….freedom.

Actually it smells a bit like slurry as I moved from NI to ROI but there are absolutely no Nazis here, not like over there. In all seriousness though, we had contemplated the move before Brexit but the referendum results just encouraged us to get a move on before house prices might have tanked (we were in a position to make a little money from our house sale, waiting may have negated that). If there’s going to be any kind of hard border or increased separation between NI and ROI I’d much rather be in the Republic (despite all the problems) than the North for a number of different reasons.