nebristolred

The same way as with cash. You send Bitcoin in return for an item. The biggest difference is that Bitcoin is pretty dreadful. It's relatively slow (hour or 2), it's expensive to send, and it's dreadful for the environment as it uses so much power. As far as crypto's go, it's one of the worst, but it's the 'gateway' in to others.

I'm relatively into crypto - agree with the post above though I should point out that there are some green cryptocurrencies which unfortunately seem to be overlooked. Very surprising considering the energy usage of some of them is completely unsustainable, which makes their rises all the more mystifying. I'm still yet to 'get' NFT's. I grasp the basic concept of them but I've never once seen an example of a realistic use case.

I highly recommend Don't Look Up on Netflix. Very eye-opening and it's very much a metaphor for what is happening now with global warming.

We’ve said we’ve wanted the academy to produce for some time. This is a statement. Win or lose, there is some talent in that lineup and whether it’s through necessity or not, it’s great that Pearson is doing this. That lineup in 3 years will be so much better.

Well if that's the truth then it just goes to prove the point even more that people have no idea how prevalent it all is.

Seem all of 'em! But they were all some time ago (although not for the Roses drummer allegedly) - I still don't think heroin nor crack cocaine are prevalent today in the same way coke/MD/ketamine is but that's purely anecdotal.

Yep exactly what I've been trying to bring across, great post this. And I'm sorry for your story - I think it is absolutely true that for many who can control it, I'd say it's arguably not that bad whatsoever, certainly not in comparison to alcohol. Doing a bit of MD here and there and a bump of coke on occasion cannot be worse than drinking 3 or 4 times a week, and there are psychological studies to back that up too. But as you say, that's only when it goes okay, and clearly it doesn't for everyone, and to some extent it's just down to luck in some ways as to whether you're the sort to be addicted to it or to be negatively impacted by certain drugs. Let's not forget that some popular ones are not addictive (in the traditional sense) whatsoever. But I can't argue a case against those who are impacted because I'm lucky enough not to have an addictive personality as such, so seeing your opinion is really interesting. I hope you're doing alright because I know once you're in a group of mates and it's such a fundamental part of socialising with them, it's incredibly difficult to break out of. I think 2 huge steps would be firstly for the public to realise just how everywhere it is. There will be so many people in restaurants and bars whinging about drugs to their group of mates, all while not having a clue that 2 or 3 of their company use or are on them. We can't address things until we have a grown up conversation about them. And secondly, the public needs to get a grasp of levels of drug impact. People automatically hear the words 'drugs' and instantly think 'bad', while being completely oblivious to the fact that drinking constantly is in fact worse than occasional use of some drugs. I'll be honest, I'm a gig goer, festival goer, our group of mates use stuff routinely, and I've never met a person who has used or even seen heroin or crack cocaine. I could be wrong, but I'd be amazed if either of those were anywhere near as prevalent as the ones we're talking about up to this point.

Yet in my closest 20 I’d say 10 are semi-regular users and all have tried at least once. A group of normal men and women. They are not wrong’uns nor addicts. They have regular (some in fact quite senior) jobs, a couple of which the cocaine is actually in a weird way a small part of the social aspect of their job. We really need to drop this idea of users being all similar in one way as it’s not true. Its not as simple as you put it, and it’d be hugely eye-opening for some to realise just how many of their closest people do drugs of some sort. As for the post above about buying it and indirectly contributing to violence, etc. I don’t really have an argument for that, it’s very true even if not a direct cause, but the biggest ‘fix’ for that is on the government level, not the individual one imo.

Agree with this and @MarcusX. Some people mocked Alex's initial statement but some are just completely oblivious to it, particularly if you've never done any of it. Right or wrong, it's everywhere, and not just linked to Stone Island wearing skinheads, some of those you'd least expect will use it regularly too. It's just another argument for some sort of legalisation imo, half the time these people don't know what they're actually getting but will continue to do it regardless.

Well if it's true that he was an 'Ashton' signing and not really LJ's (having already got Szmodics), that just makes this one all the more baffling. Nigh on 30k p/w on someone who was never a first XI player. At a club like ours that is outrageous.

Man City away was amazing. I just remember spilling into the concourse at half time, 1-0 up away to pretty much the best team on the planet at the time. Absolutely surreal, going from watching us lose to bloody Luton on a Tuesday night, to being in the lead against Pep's Man City. Obviously it didn't go our way but my word we did ourselves proud.

Mercedes can’t really take it to CAS. Conveniently the FIA don’t recognise it.

Yeah Hamilton’s response was so mature, there’s not a chance that I could have responded like that. An absolute gent in that regard on Sunday.

To be fair I don't mind the idea of SC's, it does create a bit more randomness which generates excitement, even if it isn't 100% fair. The problem is that in this case the rules have allowed the race director to create the exact situation that he wants. That shouldn't be possible and the rules need tightening up for sure. I think the verdict from Masi asks the question that Merc will be asking in court. He says in allowing the lapped cars to overtake the SC, he interpreted that as 'removing the cars that would intervene with the leaders of the race'. So why did he interpret 'leaders of the race' as simply the cars between Lewis and Max? Surely Sainz, in third and a podium spot, should also count here? Why were the cars removed for Max but not Sainz? It literally created the perfect scenario where Max had no one blocking him in front and cars blocking the third place driver behind. There is no precedent for a) releasing just the right number of cars for a particular driver and b) bringing the SC in immediately as a consequence. Not doing either of those would certainly have given Lewis the Championship, it's an absolute farce. Again, completely manufactured and artificial, and it happened either through incompetence or corruption. If F1 fail to acknowledge it as the former then it's going to look like it was the latter.

Listening to the radio is so dodgy, Horner telling the stewards ‘we only need one more racing lap’, and then the stewards just engineer that situation for him, that has never happened before and looks about as contrived a situation as you can possibly imagine. This is going to the FIA and then CAS and to be quite honest I think Mercedes have a case.

That is absolutely nuts. I will admit I'm not a huge Verstappen fan but looking at this as objectively as I can, LH has been cheated here. As far as I know (and please do correct me if I'm wrong as I could be), 2 things could have happened: 1 - Masi could let all cars unlap, or none, both situations would have followed usual protocol and seen Lewis win OR 2 - He lets an arbitrary amount of cars go through to allow a single lap of racing, against the rules and precedent, where the guy losing has 100% advantage on the car ahead, with zero cars behind to chase (let's not forget Sainz was screwed here too). Perplexing, absolutely perplexing. Nothing will happen because the FIA must save face but Mercedes have a case here. No precedent for what happened and as far as I can tell it broke their own rules, to set up a showpiece finish, completely contrived. This is F1, not WWE.

It's everywhere in my place, and for the most part people think it's ridiculous. But impress the right person and that doesn't matter. The sad thing is football seems to be an industry that is impressed by it. Whether it's down to the money involved, or that many of those involved in it are ex-players and therefore haven't been subjected to this nonsense in a traditional sense, I'm not sure. But it's an industry where being a talker seems to get people further than it might do elsewhere. In my opinion at least.

Seen a few mentions of Cam Pring along with Benarous, Scott, Conway, Semenyo, etc. It's good to see another academy product in that batch but it surprised me to see that he's actually older than Jay Dasilva.

Thought Weimann was great last night, just ran and ran and ran. There was one point around 30ish mins where we broke from a corner and Weimann was the only one up top, busting a gut in and out of their defenders to create space. Getting the ball up to him allowed the rest of the team to join and from that point on it was sustained pressure - a really handy player to have. I think if/when we have a more skilful team he will be a vital part of that and be able to show his talents a little more. At the moment him and Martin are doing the dirty work and not necessarily showcasing their potential. Also have to mention how good Scott and Benarous were, O'Dowda and Williams strong too and I thought Massengo was decent when he came on. A really encouraging game.

Brilliant.

Mythic Quest isn't too bad either. Nothing outstanding though I'll agree.

If we had the Premier League riches I would disagree. Those houses behind the Atyeo could theoretically be bought up, it's happened for ground redevelopments before, and those flats behind the Dolman can't have many more decades left. Not that I could imagine it ever happening mind you. Not to disagree with KITR as he's a good poster, but these sorts of threads always pop up when we're not doing so well, it's just the nature of football fans being a little bit fickle, and we're all guilty of it. That said I'm not even remotely informed and have far less information to make an opinion on these things, so it does make you listen when certain people have their heads turned. It's hard to criticise for the appointment of Pearson as most of us were behind that too, but the likes of Holden, and being 'fooled' for want of a better term by Ashton, these things don't look particularly great. Another way of looking at it, is that the Championship has come on so much in the past decade or 2. We have had huge infrastructure improvements, but instead of it getting us where we want/expect to be, the possible truth is that most other clubs have been doing similar things and in reality it's only actually been enough for us to keep up, and no more. Perhaps we're over-expectant in that respect. I can't imagine we'd be where we are now if we still had the GJ-era infrastructure in place. Annoyingly my Athletic subscription expired last week so if someone could paste the full article that would be great.

Isn't it something to do with the fact that each car can only have 1 camera live streamed from them? And in Max's case it was just the rear-facing one - they have to wait for the car to come in before downloading all of the other cameras? If so I find it mad that the stewards cannot get the onboards from each driver live.

Not to go all Kevin Keegan, but I'd absolutely love it if Hamilton won it this year. Undoubtedly one of the greats already, and getting that 8th title would objectively give him a case for being the greatest ever. This is all during a season where they almost certainly haven't actually had the best car, up against the best young talent in years, and unfortunately with very little support from his teammate who I think checked out about 2 years ago. I can see why he might not be to everyone's taste - he can come across as a little bit annoying, though I'd say in recent years he's far better. But I think there is an element of immaturity with all F1 drivers to some extent, I don't think they're quite emotionally developed like the rest of the population. They are almost entirely rich kids from rich families who had a very different upbringing to most, it's almost a perfect recipe for developing jumped up arrogant adults . But unlike Norris, Stroll, Verstappen, Sainz, Leclerc, etc, Hamilton was brought up with his Dad having worked long hours at 'normal' jobs so he probably does have genuine humility. We do have a great crop of young drivers at the moment though and having Russell and Norris in that mix is fantastic. One thing to have come out of the past year or 2 is just how twattish the Red Bull lot are. You could always tell there was a bit of it, it's all part of the game, but the toys come out of the pram far more often with them, a total lack of class from the team in general (except for maybe Newey). Verstappen showed yesterday (and showed earlier in the season) that he will not race fairly when the stakes are at their highest. Completely agree and I think we could see Schumacher v Hill all over again if the Mercs can claw back some of the deficit.

What agenda? How can 'wear what you want' possibly bother you?