>>22523
I think BBC 4 already did that.

>>22523
Netflix genuinely has an hours long 4k stream of a fireplace.

>>22524
Would definitely watch it though - I love those BBC4 shows.

>>22523
Hang the DJ was alright.

>>22527
I watched that after White Christmas and USS Callister and ended up thinking he needs to start coming up with a new plot device.

1995 mate. 23 years ago.

I don't get your point, but if it's that Stewart Lee doesn't say offensive things, I don't really know what to say to you other than I hope that you and your children go blind, not one of them, in one of their eyes - all of them, in all of their eyes

She's got enough on her plate right now and at this point you barely know her much less have an exact idea of what she's going through. Unless your cock is a magic wand it's best to leave it at a thought of wishing her the best and getting back to your own business.

>>27878
A letter is inherently melodramatic in today's world and reeks of being from one of those people who makes a death all about themselves.

>>27880

My first reaction was indeed that I had no right to just barge into her life, out of nowhere for all intents and purposes, at a moment that was about mourning the tragic death of a very close family member. And not about all of a sudden an old boyfriend making himself noticed, who might entertain the misplaced idea that it was a decent thing to do to express my condolences in writing.

I understand that fully, and that's why I actually didn't send my condolences. But then again part of me is really shaken up about this, both because my own dad killed himself, so it kind of hit close to home, and because I actually really liked her dad back in the day.

This thread is probably going to amount to little more than mental shadow boxing without any real world consequences, but I value your perspectives on the issue, .gs. That's why I posted it.

It sounds like you want to contact her to comfort yourself in some way, be it to express something about your own father to her, to talk to her again, or simply to feel better about yourself for sending your condolences to her. This is not a good idea.

If you're 100% sure your condolences will actually console her, then go ahead. If you're just wanting to have a teary together with her about your sad lives, just so you can wallow for a bit with her, then please leave well alone. That's the impression I'm getting from the way you're writing.

The normal, baseline response would be to send a bereavement card to her (her family). If she has any interest in talking to you at that point, then she will.

>>27884

I'm just kind of caught between the idea that it's a decent thing to do to express your condolences to the family of somebody you used to know on the one hand, and the realisation on the other hand that the door to my ex was shut years ago, and that this is possibly the least appropriate kind of time to reopen that door. If that would ever be a good idea in the first place.

>>14723

Any chance of getting webms?

It's the last part of getting over someone. Stay strong and maybe find someone else to keep your lonely mind busy.

>>27865
5 years is the outer limit of hormone induced infatuation affecting your decision making, as it wears off after between 3-5 years and it exists to stop men doing a runner after the baby is born. It's good to be aware of biological mechanisms when dealing with stuff like this, but I think you're probably clear of it's influence despite it sounding a lot like you aren't.

Instead, this seems like guilt becoming an obsession. You need to forgive yourself, regardless of whether she ever does or not, and move on.

>>27867
I've thrown away anything that would remind me of her but my subconscious still has me quite literally kicking other women out of bed in my sleep. Being a pain in the arse obsessive stalker is the last thing I'd want to do, pushing my problems all over someone else who most likely moved on a long time ago. I don't think I know how to forgive myself.

>>27868
>I don't think I know how to forgive myself.

That, my friend, we cannot help you with. You need to speak to someone qualified to help you break this obsessive cycle of behaviour and to talk about why you feel you can't forgive yourself.

I will say though, forgiving yourself doesn't have a requirement or obligation for other people to respect your decision. It's personal, it's not about pleasing others or even about redemption. It's about being able to live with yourself and be inside your own head and it be a safe space rather than a hostile one.

>>26981
Do they take cheque?

>>26978
How do you find your way within those thousands of samples?

>>26983

Most sample libraries nowadays come with a nice powerful sample player UI, and lots of metadata so you can quickly find stuff and it's all nicely organised, like Kontakt here. The big players are very good at this, to the point where I could browse a category like "brass, alien, sci fi, fx" and find something specific to all of those.

Even without all that the standard practice for a sample pack is to put everything in very specific nested folders, so even looking at the raw files you could easily find your single short C sharp trumpet note by going Sample Pack>Orchestral>Brass>Trumpet>C#staccatotrumpet.wav, though that's really not neccesary these days since most sample makers will include indexing files for all the common sample player software.

>>26982
I don't know. Maybe I should check.

>>26986>>26982

Czech yourselves before you wrzech yourselves.

>>17092

I see a lot of people like you fearing for what might happen, but the reality is we're already there.

If the government wants to track you, they already are, and they have been for decades. It's admittedly made easier by new technology, but if MI5 want to know where I'm spending my cash, they'll sharp find out. Your phone, your face, your fingerprints, it's all easy enough to track even by a private company, let alone the government.

We're long past the point of being able to fly under the radar. I'd be surprised if there wasn't already a social/criminal score tied to my name in a computer in a basement somewhere in London.

>>17093
I wouldn't say that is precisely what worries me, any debate over direct surveillance was over the day we allowed CCTV everywhere. Now it's just normal and people would be more likely to get mad over not enough data being available.

Instead what worries me is how passive this is all becoming and the danger of interlinking data as a means of social control or even re-personalisation of society. So far we've had a society of increasing anonymity after centuries of every moraliser in the village knowing your business but that's changing and I think this thread is already illustrative of how people will accept things out of simple convenience. Nothing can seemingly be done about it as an individual and indeed, you better be a good boy now or things could get painful for you and everyone who associates with you. I'd probably even have a good score but as a paranoid weirdo who just wants to be left alone it bothers me.

>>17093

>We're long past the point of being able to fly under the radar. I'd be surprised if there wasn't already a social/criminal score tied to my name in a computer in a basement somewhere in London.


This is pretty much the reality we live in.

China has simply taken it a step further by being quite open about it and admitting to a full-on social scoring system. But that doesn't mean countries like the UK have nothing at all of this sort. It's just kept more hidden from view because obviously it goes against the core principles of a free democratic country as we are led to believe we still live in.

>>17092
> Maybe we'll never have social credit score
It's already there, think of knobheads offing themselves because of 'likes' - or lack of such - on social media. In less extreme cases, falling into depressive states for the same reason.
The banks have extensive profiles on people. I've seen one - just a casual glance - it wasn't pretty.
Add nosey employers/HRs that sort of vet potential candidates on social media.
It's only about when the gubmint busybodies catch wind properly and make it more formalised.
>>17097
Many moons ago I paid a visit to one of the local prisons on behalf of the company I'd worked for at that time.
Even if I expected it I was still amazed by the amount of cameras over that place.
Now when I walk through the city I just can't help and notice CCTV everywhere, and I always remind myself of that grim place.
It's ludicrous.

>>17108

>It's already there, think of knobheads offing themselves because of 'likes' - or lack of such - on social media.

In that case, they weren't going to survive life's harsh realities in the first place.

When I was a lil un, nobody ever really wanted me on their team when we were playing a bit of footie in the neighbourhood playground after school. I was very honestly shit at it, and have been all my life. But that didn't mean I was unaware of the rejection that was going on there.

Was I going to off myself at age ten because of it? No, not really. I also never really thought about offing myself when I applied for jobs and a good few companies declined to even invite me for an interview. I also never considered doing something bad to myself whenever a girlfriend dumped me.

So again, if you can't deal with people not "like"ing you on the Internet, then you are simply unfit for a normal adult life, where rejection will almost be the norm.

>>4150

Must be a beemer though, can't think of another 3L straight 6 with a ZF.

>>4151
> 3 odd litre straight 6.
Not 3L. So old Jags?

>>4152

Ah yes, an old XJ of some sort. I'd guess XJ6 since he said 'barge'.

It's an old XJ40 (XJ6)

Thinking about scrapping it now. I have serious adulting to do unfortunately.

>>4154
Funny how you too call this type of cars barge.
Nice vehicle. I admit I have a soft spot for them though.

>>423071
You could probably get people claiming that Santa Claus really existed, if you apply the standard criteria of historical investigation to the likes of Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas and whatever else he's based on.

Actually, is Santa Claus the modern equivalent of Jesus? He's effectively only existed in the form we recognise today for c. 150 years and all sorts of bollocks keeps getting added to it to make it seem plausible, to a certain extent.

>>423073

>You could probably get people claiming that Santa Claus really existed, if you apply the standard criteria of historical investigation to the likes of Saint Nicholas, Father Christmas and whatever else he's based on.

I struggle to see what you mean.

>>423074
Big bloke. Bushy white beard. Red and white outfit. Delivers presents to the kiddies.

>>423075

Yeah but everybody knows that's just an OAP (or dolescum) in a costume.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_d8vLQKC1k

>>12847
He might. He did all that jazz on his previous job. As far as I can judge it wasn't too much nuisance for him, perhaps even some sort of a rather pleasant ritual.
>>12848
He has one, I think. It's a good little thing but the coffee it makes is of different kind, despite being brewed by pressure too.

>>12847

The middle ground option would be a semi-automatic machine with a capsule-compatible portafilter. That gives you the choice between doing everything yourself, or just dropping in a capsule if you can't be arsed with grinding and tamping.

As regards the original question, I think that entry-level machines have improved greatly in recent years. Cheap fully-automatic capsule machines make a perfectly decent espresso, they just lack the level of control that hobbyists want.

Sorted.

>>12851
Instant? Please. Even the Polish method (or Israeli 'kafe bots', whatever the damn name is) yields better results.

Speaking of espresso, are there any decent materials about this magic? What I'm actually interested about is modern 'schools of preparation'.
That Italian Espresso Institute paper said 7 g of ground coffee per one serving. Americans seem to be stuffing at least 14 g, usually 18 to 21 g.

>>7445
>cut my losses

Set a limit for losses and always stick to them - chasing / waiting out losses to rebound never, ever works and there is probably better places for your (reduced) money in the meantime.

The Fed is raising rates, Trump is a lunatic and that's before we get into the turmoil that will almost certainly plague the markets for the next five months around Brexit. Are you expecting a miracle?

The only stocks I hold at present are those of the company I work for (which is in FTSE250) - bad form to get out of those while still gainfully employed.

Cash, funds, bonds, hell - horses might be a better place for your money at the moment.

I bought my S&P stocks in May this year when the index started showing signs of recovering from its slump a few weeks earlier. I was right to do so, as it turned out, hoping that strong corporate gains from Trump's tax cuts would offset QE tightening. but I then kind of missed the boat because obviously the S&P has plummeted since the ATH in early October.

Really didn't think we would go from ATH to bear market in just ten weeks.

Glad I made the right call on the FTSE though. My pertaining portfolio would be worth nearly 15 percent less now, i.e. worse than the index's performance. Sold it all near the market high. With Brexit, it's not where you want your money in the foreseeable future.

>>7447

>chasing / waiting out losses to rebound never, ever works

It depends. In a strong uptrend with the stock of a fundamentally healthy company, against the backdrop of a strong economy and other positive market determinants, an intermittent dip can be waited out. On the other hand, nobody tells you when that strong uptrend will fizzle out and a stock is going significantly lower with no hope of bouncing back to your break even point.

>>7448
>With Brexit, it's not where you want your money in the foreseeable future.

Value stocks are exceedingly cheap, relative to their fundamentals. I'd expect there to be a cyclical change in 2019 from growth stocks, particularly tech ones, to value stocks performing strongly. If you're prepared to hold then there's bargains to be had.

>>7450

>Value stocks are exceedingly cheap, relative to their fundamentals

That's a double edged sword though. There are two reasons why stocks can be cheap relative to fundamentals, for example if you take earnings multiples. One is that the market is genuinely oversold due to a sudden panic that just dragged profitable companies down with all the rest of the stocks. That indeed presents a buying opportunity. We had that in many (European) indexes right after the Brexit vote, where the overall picture for the coming months or year was nowhere near as grim as it seemed on the day of the Brexit sell off.

The other possibility, however, is that stocks are cheap relative to current earnings because they are expensive relative to future earnings. That's a huge pitfall right there. A stock may trade at 12 times 2018 earnings at the moment, and that's a decent price earnings ratio, but if your earnings are feared to go down 40 percent in 2019, as they very well might with some stocks if the economic outlook worsens, then suddenly you have a PER for 2019 (at the current stock price) of exactly 20. And as a value investor, that's no sweet spot to get in on. It's very likely that your stock will not have seen its bottom despite a recent slump. Your stock would have to go down another 40 percent to get you the same kind of PER of 12 for 2019 as it does now for 2018.

Having said that, I think markets are at the moment pricing in that there could be a recession. But as markets often do, they tend to exaggerate the actual big picture. At the point where we are at right now, after almost an entire month of ceaseless panic selling and a whole 4th quarter of sizeable overall down movement, there is a good chance we've undershot even the grimmest worst case scenarios for 2019 and beyond. Stocks are really remarkably oversold right now, going by various technical indicators. There is at least some room for short-term speculation to the upside again.

>>40711
I thought exactly the same actually - there were a couple of slightly fatter ones who looked attractive but most of them had a waste of an arse, very disappointing.

>>40711
>>40712

I feel like if you guys were as comfortable as you claim in your love of fat chicks (of which there is plenty now days) you would be bitching about the fact that girls a exist that aren't.

>>40713

There's nothing wrong with skinny girls, but booty dancing is just pointless unless you've actually got a booty.

>>40714
Thats much better.

>>40713
I wasn't making a value judgement of fat or skinnier women being more or less attractive in general. Just that people without arses aren't made attractive by trying to shake them.

>>12818
How can it be the same site if both coexisted at the same time, it's operated by different people and never shared any code or data.

>>12820

How can the hms Trafalgar and the HMS Ark Royal have both been flagship of the British navy when they have both been around at the same time?

I imagine the underlying data and project are the same but one is the updated version of the other.

>>12821
So you reckon Monster donated their source code to competitor Adzuna? You think they shared data but forced everyone to reregister, reupload their CVs and repost job ads for the fun of it? They shared data and yet no user was able to see any evidence of this.

Or is it that you don't have a fucking clue but feel entitled to argue anyway using ridiculous analogies?

>>12822
>You think they shared data but forced everyone to reregister, reupload their CVs and repost job ads for the fun of it?
It involves the DWP so that is in no way an unreasonable assumption.

They may be different beasts but they serve the same function. Fuck's sake, lads. You really will argue over anything.

>>422555
We prefer not to speak of them.

>>420471
>where I ramble incoherently about how deeply in love with ContraPoints I've fallen
ContraPoints the transgendered atheist off YouTube (use to be Nykytyne2)?

>>423040
No, the other one.

>>423040
It needn't be hell with Nykytynell.

Do you lads think some form of collaborative thread on /beat/ would work?

I haven't thought it through yet. Probably something like you post a song and someone recommends you another song they think you'd like based on it; that seems the most straightforward.

>>84342
>>84666



I'd really like to know why nobody just says: "OK, I did wrong, I behaved like a pig, I am sorry." All this melodrama with the (probably fake) hospitalisation, mental breakdown and revelation of (GASP!) childhood abuse feel just like deep denial. At least to me. It looks like manning up and admitting your own faults went out of fashion.

>>84710

I'd respect anyone who would just say "Yeah I cheated on my wife and I'm into 19 year olds, but none of that affects my work, so get over it"

Not entirely sure why we should expect him to apologise at all to anyone but his missu, and that certainly shouldn't be done in public.

>>84711

BoJo, Trump and Saville have shown the power of brazenness in politics. It probably doesn't say great things about our society, but a lot of people respect someone who just says "I'm an arsehole, I'm not going to change for anyone, deal with it".

>>84712

I find this works in real life, too. People seem comfortable with a wanker as long as they're self aware and unapologetic about it.

I think it might be because we don't actually believe nice people are nice.

>>84712
I think the effect is probably more on the public at large than at the bubble they're in. I mean be honest, does anyone in the general public actually know who this guy is? It's more the kind of scandal that bothers people in the westminster-media-that-kind-of-thing bubble, the people who actually vaguely know about him. If you appeal beyond them to the general public, the general public will either find out you exist and some of them will be with you, or they'll respond with silence - proving they're not actually outraged at all.

I feel like the UK could do with someone truly Brazen, someone who doesn't equivocate on their nastiness or retreat, a sort of Trump type, just to show that emperor middle-class decency is well and truly in the nude. Perhaps our libel laws are why that's not happened yet.

>>22617

Sonic Mania is apparently good, they handed over the licence to the hard core mega drive modders, I believe otherwise they are considered shit.

>>22617
Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is one of the best racing games of all time as far as I'm concerned. Very fleshed out single player with lots of content.

Sonic Generations is good and so are Sonic CD and Sonic Mania. Rest of them range from shit to mediocre.

Epic have launched their own store for games. Every two weeks there is a new freebie offering apparently.

Subnautica free until Dec 28th. After that it's Super Meat Boy.

https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/

>>22620

Cheers.

Seen anything good in the Steam sale?

https://store.steampowered.com/

Keep Talking And Nobody Explodes and Overcooked are both less than four quid, if you're looking for something fun for the family.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/341800/Keep_Talking_and_Nobody_Explodes/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/448510/Overcooked/

The Steam Controller is half price.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/353370/Steam_Controller/

>>6737
Damning with faint praise, I think it's called.

Fleshmarket Close 2004)
The Naming of the Dead (2006)
Exit Music (2007)
Standing in Another Man's Grave (2012)
Saints of the Shadow Bible (2013)
The Complaints (2009) - Malcolm Fox
The Impossible Dead (2011) - Malcolm Fox
Even Dogs in the Wild (2015)
Rather Be the Devil (2016)

I finished the remaining Rebus novels, as well as the two Fox ones which took place in the chronicity. Malcolm Fox seems like a pointless character, Siobhan is more interesting but rarely develops in any particular fashion. Fox is particularly annoying as he supposedly sticks to the rules and does things by the book as all the other characters are keen to remind him in conversation except he really doesn't, every now and then he'll go against his orders in the most pointless way and achieve nothing at all by it.
The Naming of the Dead stuck out in particular as of all the books it had the most life to it, Rankin seemed energised by the G8 protests and how much he hates Bono. Exit Music and Even Dogs in the Wild had some particularly melancholy moments which I enjoyed.
As the stories progress into the later books (16+) it seems like someone was teaching Rankin about actual organised crime, so they begin to be a bit convoluted in a dull way all to do with buying property and banking investments. Once or twice this is done well but the rest of the time I wasn't terribly impressed. One case in particular was a retrospective thing about how all the gangsters invested in the land around the Scottish Parliament in the pre-2000 referendum and the fallout from that, then later there's a book where they're investing again in the land for the more recent referendum, but when that fails the next book ignores it.
Some odd things in the chronology; Rebus seems to forget his father was dead in one book, and the biography of Big Ger written at the end of one book has been totally forgotten by everyone involved a few books later when someone else proposes writing one.
I'm amused that the early cases sometimes take weeks and months with years in between, then the more recent ones all seem to happen in a matter of days, something that Rankin started doing presumably when he realised Rebus was about to reach the age of retirement and is now getting very old, but wanting to keep writing more books.

Message too long. Click here to view the full text.

While I am usually a fan of the memoirs and autobiographies of the users, the junkies, the alcoholics, life's general riff-raff that end up laid up at the lower stratas of society, this one left me not just unfulfilled but also fairly sad that I'd bothered to read it all.

If we can all agree that there is no point in reading (or writing, for that matter) something that you, or at least someone else, can’t learn anything from then we have no choice but to conclude that this is a useless book written by a useless person.

For there is nothing to learn here at all. No musings on the causes, mechanisms, whys, or wherefores of addiction or the visceral drive towards self destruction; about the deepest this book gets (and I paraphrase) is "and then I spent a few years letting gross men I didn't know bundle me into nightclub toilets and give me cocaine before later pulling me onto their laps in taxis while unzipping their fly, but you know how it is, right girls?!?!?".

Even Sarah Hepola's snooze-fest Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget or Burroughs Junior's ungainly, lurching memoir Speed have a comparative ocean of insight and a lot less "My dad was distant and my mother hated me and Kurt Cobain died, and here's a vague description of how I did a lot of dumb shit despite being born with a silver spoon in my mouth without even an attempt at self-contemplation about why I might have done so" when compared to this.

tl;dr - A pointless book by a pointless person, even her beauty columns had more to say about life than this and I'm a heterosexual male whose idea of looking after myself is trying to remember to get my hair cut more than once a year.

I've just killed an hour reading a short story from Frederick Forsyth about some poor sod who got blackmailed by a prozzie. Money with Menaces it's called, I think.

I smelt something was up when the protagonist of the story talked back to his blackmailers, even more so when he mounted a shopping run for some components too ordinary to be left without attention.

The moment with the photo he'd removed from his flat before he got visited by a copper is still kind of brilliant.

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy the works of Sir Terry. You can tell that Pratchett and Gaiman were challenging themselves to make the other laugh when they were writing it; it's the most fun I've had reading a book in quite some time.

The certificate expired shortly before noon today.

I just noticed its https now and 😍

Really appreciate the work you did for this.

(A good day to you Sir!)

>>14787
Duly noted, I shall contain myself.

You know that email that Let's Encrypt sends you to let you know the certificate is going to expire, right? Right?

You know, right? Right?



Right, lads? Right?

>>14815
We like to let it expire to remind you how secure and private your posts are.

There's a masonlad here, he was very informative when we were trying to understand the whole thing.

Closest thing I've ever been to a secret club was eating ortolan illegally.

>>12893

Left is a goer, middle likes anal but only occasionally, right won't even give you a blowie unless it's your birthday.

>>12894
Left looks like she'd be very loose and sloppy, with no firmness to her body whatsoever. She'd drive you up the wall with the inane things she frequently utters.

Middle looks like there's some hidden horror lurking beneath, like she's got a ridiculously hairy muff and it's all matted with discharge because she doesn't believe in washing.

Right is ice cold. She just lies there like a dead fish during sex.

>>12894
>>12895
Left has an undiagnosed learning disability and is quick to anger.
Middle is a skinny-fat bloke who grew a vagina to go with those sad tits.
Right has an eating disorder and cutting scars - like shagging a greyhound.

Trust me, I have shit taste in women.

>>12896

>like shagging a greyhound

Is that good or bad?

>>12897
Bad, since they are thin and not necessarily well cared for. A plumper dog from a loving family would be a much better shag.