Week One has provided some excellent rugby, dodgy refereeing and unfortunate injuries.
I think we can all unite around Uruguay as WC champions.
Other competitions are also starting up, so cancel all engagements and be prepared to spend your entire weekend and parts of the midweek glued to the screen. Hopefully not literally.
For those of you who lack rugby preparation skills, let me remind you to order in adequate supplies of booze, fags and possibly food.
Exciting rugby on the telly this week
Friday 27th September
| Cheetahs 48 – 14 Glasgow | 18:05 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Ulster 38 – 14 Ospreys | 19:35 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Leicester 27 – 7 Exeter | 19:45 | BT Sport 2 |
Saturday 28th September
| Argentina 28 – 12 Tonga | 05:45 | ITV |
| Japan 19 – 12 Ireland | 08:15 | ITV |
| South Africa 57 – 3 Namibia | 10:45 | ITV |
| Northampton 32 – 36 Wasps | 15:00 | BT Sport 3 |
| Munster 39 – 3 Drags | 15:00 | Freesports / TG4 |
| Southern Kings 27 – 31 Cardiff Blues | 15:00 | Premier Sports 2 |
| Scarlets 18 – 10 Connacht | 17:15 | PS2 / S4C / TG4 |
| Treviso 27 – 32 Leinster | 17:15 | Premier Sports 1 |
| Edinburgh 50 – 15 Zebre | 19:35 | Premier Sports 2 |
Sunday 29th September
| Georgia 33 – 7 Uruguay | 06:15 | ITV |
| Australia 25 – 29 Wales | 08:45 | ITV / S4C |
Monday 30th September
| Scotland 34 – 0 Samoa | 11:15 | ITV |
Wednesday 2nd October
| France 33 – 9 USA | 08:45 | ITV4 |
| New Zealand 63 – 0 Canada | 11:15 | ITV4 |
Thursday 3rd October
| Georgia 10 – 45 Fiji | 06:15 | ITV4 |
| Ireland 35 – 0 Russia | 11:15 | ITV |
Ovally Balls 
Ticht @19:57 – aye, and outsourcing!
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ticht, how would that affect someone doing busines in, say, Thurles, a mile from the border, who wants to move things across the border?
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To add to my previous: most serious servers today use Linux, which is very similar to Unix. Unix had various proprietary flavours: IRIX for Silicon Graphics machines, AIX for IBM ones, HP-UX, etc. They really have only minor differences in commands. Linux then came along, open-source, as the One Ring To Bind Them.
We do also have Windows servers. I have had to work on one in the past few days that’s still running Windows Server 2003 – good lord, how did I ever work on that? Spent most of the time wondering how the fuckety fuck I could find the system environment variables, etc. I suppose it was good job security as you had to know the particular incantations for that release.
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“All it is it taking a score of a person’s qualities, rating them against an index and then deciding whether they can stay or not.
“What’s wrong with that?”
Craigs, it’s fantasy land politics appealing to common sense legitimate concerns red meat nonsense. It doesn’t always work too well either in terms of its goals either.
Plus, you know, as a beneficiary of freedom of movement within the EU I can see the benefits of that policy.
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Tom, there are supposed to be these checking warehouses on either side of the border so whatever was being moved across the bridge or whatever would have to go there and back again, I guess
But I think this passport thing outlined in that article is huge, this is what is going to bring back violence if anything is.
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Ticht @20:28 – it’s also worth noting that many DUP voters and supporters are farmers and small businesspeople who will be devastated by any Brexit that doesn’t mean NI at least remaining in the SM/CU. The DUP are haemorrhaging support from their core. What’s unknown is whether those people will vote for an alternative party – most likely the moribund UUP – or simply stay at home.
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Thaum, my god parents are in Newtonards, the guy is a country vet, all these “subsidiary” jobs and their dependents will be affected too.
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Patel gloating about ending freedom of movement and restricting UK residency to the ‘best and brightest’ foreigners.
Do people not realise that such policies will likely be reciprocated by other countries, meaning that only the ‘best and brightest’ Britons will be able to live and work in the EU?
She is essentially saying that only affluent successful working British people will be able to live elsewhere in the same continent and she is being applauded for it.
Imagine the howls of outrage if EU countries started talking about minimum incomes of 30k pa, points systems, ‘best and brightest’, no more ‘queue jumping’ etc for Brits looking to move to the continent!
Also, does the government realise how deeply insulting it is to the EU citizens who already live in the UK when they boast about ending the system that allowed them to be there? As if to suggest we have been enduring the ‘dross’ for decades, but now we’re only accepting the ‘best and brightest’ ‘those who will make a genuine contribution’ etc?
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Ticht – yep, yet another good example!
Now, where’s OT gone? I was just getting warmed up to an in-depth discussion on critical welds vs safety and other welds, and how process planning and simulation software can help with these problems when you have all the data available from your CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM software.
It’s an immensely complex issue, and my hat is seriously doffed to those who worked – or still work – it all out without software to help.
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‘pro
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Expro – I would suggest that those who actually make the greatest contribution to society are care workers, cleaners and fruit/veg pickers, etc. Of course, none of them would be allowed in under an ‘Australian-style points-based system’.
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@Thauma
100% agree.
But modern conservatism, and Brexit, is rooted in and dedicated to weapons grade spivvery, and as such has no time for people who add value, only for those who steal it.
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@thauma
I had to attend to family matters. Much as I’d like to talk shop on here I’d get into trouble if I let domestic matters slip. Ahem.
Anyway are you familiar with cobots? Effectively clever robots that aren’t gated off, can interact with people, do all the hard jobs fixed robots can do, but also move themselves around to where they are needed. A big manufacturer (well known to us all) told me the other week that they bought 3 of these things and then asked the HSE how to make sure they can be certified safe. The HSE said “er, just make them safe”. So they gated them off.
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Tomp – I wasn’t being serious there. Whilst I think it is legitimate to have an immigration policy or strategy, that comes across as way too transactional to me. It’s not like everyone wanting to migrate gets an equal chance to meet the criteria.
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OT – nope, not heard of cobots. I certainly don’t like the idea of mobile welding robots – those fuckers are huge, and a misplaced pressing of the home key could easily decapitate someone – and probably has.
Probably your cobots are rather smaller.
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On tangential County Down news, was speaking to my mother last week and we were talking about my grandfather’s family. They’re from MickeyNumbers territory – my great-great grandfather, two of his daughters and his son, my great-grandfather, lived on New Road, Donaghadee in 1911 and in The Strand, Portaferry 10 years earlier.
The great-grandfather was a retired ship’s captain and I discovered that he was the captain of this ship, the Star of Persia, out of Belfast, made at Harland & Wolff: https://collections.slsa.sa.gov.au/resource/PRG+1373/16/68 .
On the 1901 Irish census form it has all the stuff you’d expect including place of birth for the g-g-g-father, the g-g-father and one of the g-g-aunts it’s “Co Down, Ireland”. For the other it’s ” At sea. Latitude 17, Longitude 31″, which is about 500 miles west of Cape Verde.
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Enlightening and insightful readback today. Feel quite privileged to read such clear and cogent reasoning and discussion, and I’ve learned a lot from it.
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Just had an idea. Since Tory politicians are awfully fond of visiting factories in hi-vis vests, maybe we could get Spaffer to visit an auto assembly plant, stand him next to a welding robot, give him the teach pendant, and ask him to press the Home key.
For those of you who aren’t familiar with robots of this type, the Home key instructs the robot to return to its home position (think deactivated Dalek). It will solve the algorithms for all six axes by the fastest possible route without any regard for what lies between its parts and that position.
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@tomp
I’ve posted this before and I’ll post it again
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Not sure how I feel about this:
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Now you mention it, the ABs are a bit like a cobot army.
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OT, crikey. I can see why she was one of the Britannia Unchained crew with Liz “Sorry Yemenis It Was an Honest Mistake” Truss and Dominic “Dover” Raab.
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OT – It’s not a deterrent, killing the wrong people. Brilliant.
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@OT, classic example of how not to listen to and understand the other side of an argument, because it might interfere with what you’ve planned to say. Despicable person.
In others news, Spurs 2-7 against Bayern M. Woof.
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In a similar vein, John Crace’s column is particularly good tonight: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2019/oct/01/tories-reveal-themselves-as-party-of-lawlessness-and-disorder
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“For Australian scores, the match DJ’s playlist was rather less eclectic and almost exclusively limited to Down Under from Men at Work.”
At least they didn’t play Crowded House.
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Was it someone on here, whose dad(?) was making an Antikythera? Started watching this yesterday:
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Refit – my dad. He’s given a few talks at some universities and is writing a book about it.
In fact, here he is:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/jcR2SgyGnpjhvKMk7
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Damn, didn’t embed
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Just follow the link.
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The last time I looked up stats for this discussion was about ten years ago but I seem to recall that recidivism was lowest in countries/states/provinces where the most liberal punishment systems were in place and conversely the highest murder rates were in those places where a capital punishment “deterrent” was the law.
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That 3D play could be a fantastic training aid, coupled with read outs from the players’ gps gadgets etc.
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Refit – those videos are pretty cool. My dad made his out of plastic and brass. It costs a lot to make it all out of brass!!!
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I was introduced to cobots at a company digital event a few weeks ago. What I learned is that there’s a young man in Doncaster with limited presentational skills who doesn’t know any more about them than I do.
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Craigs – I knew my brain wasn’t letting me down on this occasion.
I watched 3 the other night. Need to set aside some time for the rest. That kind of craftsmanship and patience leave me stunned.
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@ticht tbh they seem to be looking at the border issue as a series of discrete problems which can be solved individually without looking at the bigger more awkward and scary issue.
This might solve some of the immediate supply chain issues in the agri food and SME sectors – milk collected from farms in NI, processed at dairies in Ireland and then back on to shops in NI. However if there’s still tariffs to be imposed once the stuff leaves the expanded border zone it would just move the problem down the line rather than resolve it.
It also doesn’t resolve any of the issues around identity that are supposed to be enshrined in the good Friday agreement.
Apparently boris has a great plan that’s going to fix this all by the weekend which is great
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@TomP – I have no idea what Willemse’s call up is about. It’s not a like for like replacement; Willemse has never played top level rugby at 13 (as far as I know) and is not great defensively whether playing 10 or 15 so chucking him in at 13 would be suicide. Can one of De Allende or Steyn cover 13? Possibly. But then what’s the point of Willemse?
I’d rather have Wandisile Simelane from the Lions, Jeremy Ward from the Sharks or JJ Engelbrecht, fiddling around at Clermont for a World Cup stint. And even better for Rasssie, he’s from the useless Stormers, so will fit right in. JJ would probably get the nod based on experience, Simelane on potential and Ward because he’s led the Junior Boks before.
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I hear Roger Moore is going well down in ITV4.
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Ward’s ok but not really test class. Simelane’ll be there one day but not yet. I’d rather Rassie selected you than Engelbrecht.
Fingers crossed Am doesn’t do himself any damage. If he goes off early v Italy it’ll be Fat Francis and de Allende in midfield. Eek.
I reckon Gelant might start at 13 v Canada with Willemse at full back.
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There’s whatisname as well, the Sevenz player from Western Province who got in the squad this year or last. Nel?
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Good morning all.
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Ruhan Nel – didn’t really do much in Super Rugby, but it’s difficult to tell if he’s any good playing at the Stormers. Slim pickings for us at 13, but picking a sieve who is a flaky 10, deployed at 15 to shield him from runners and hoping he can cover 13 is madness. A midfield of de Allende and Steyn is truly frightening. Let’s rather talk about something else.
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In attack it doesn’t really matter who the Boks pick at 13 anyway as they’re only there to chase Faf’s box kicks. Am’s a fine defender, usually. I rate Willemse much more than you do.
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A minute’s silence for Chirac. Bleeeurgh.
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G’wan USA!
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First try scored by everyone’s favourite winger, Huget, after a lovely chip into the 22 by Lopez.
7-0
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@TomP
“Thurles, a mile from the border” – on a point of geography – not the Thurles I know. Clones – maybe?
(that said there’s a Johnstown in nearly every county)
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USA get the ball in the corner, via a couple of pens. France collapse the resulting maul and are now on a team warning.
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This time France get it right and disrupt the maul and force the ball out of play.
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Trisk, you’re right. Why was I thinking Thurles. My mate Jim’s from Clones and his dad was a customs man and I was thinking about them. A very strange slip.
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