Why ??!!...The whinging,moaning,complaining,ranting,letting off steam thread !!

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  • QBranchQBranch Always have an escape plan. Mine is watching James Bond films.
    Posts: 14,662
    (In the future) "We are proud to unveil our 11th generation console... *pulls sheet away* ...the Xbox One One!"
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited October 2022 Posts: 18,338
    j_w_pepper wrote: »
    I'm tempted to ask the ironical question what an X Box is in the first place. But I do basically know in reality, it's just that I never had any computer game console, nor do I expect to develop the urge to own one. My computer game experience more or less ends with Tetris and FreeCell. Fine with me. Wordle fascinates me more.

    I'm the same. Never owned a games console. I have played a few computer games on my PC (such as GTA) but that was years ago. I guess it just doesn't interest me very much and I have no particular skills in playing them either, at least compared with those who play computer games regularly. I know grown adults who stream their games on Twitch and the like and it does seem a bit strange, but then I'm an analogue throwback in an increasingly digital world.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,298
    j_w_pepper wrote: »
    I've watched some professional Tetris competitions and it is intense as hell.
    Yes, but I guess even regarding Tetris my last attempts were twenty years ago.

    And my experience with moving characters is stuck with Leisure Suit Larry, I'm afraid.

    Wasn't Larry only suited for 18+? I know I played it, but my memory doesn't go further than having to entertain a lady of certain standards.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 3,154
    Yeah, I'm another one who's never played a computer game. Never played board games, etc, as a kid so just didn't have the interest, I guess.
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou, but I now hear a new dog barkin'
    edited October 2022 Posts: 9,073
    j_w_pepper wrote: »
    I've watched some professional Tetris competitions and it is intense as hell.
    Yes, but I guess even regarding Tetris my last attempts were twenty years ago.

    And my experience with moving characters is stuck with Leisure Suit Larry, I'm afraid.

    Wasn't Larry only suited for 18+? I know I played it, but my memory doesn't go further than having to entertain a lady of certain standards.

    Well, I definitely WAS 18+ at the time (rather almost twice as much)...and I got a copy, on a floppy disk of course, from a very good friend of mine (about 65 at the time) in the US who showed me the first steps on how to use an MS-DOS PC in 1990 (he had worked for IBM for a long time)...before I ever got one at work and at least three years before I bought my first private one using the sensational Windows 3.1. But my introduction to MS-DOS still helps me occasionally when I need to use a command prompt, even under Win 11.

    I think there were several instalments of LSL, with each one getting a bit raunchier...but I only had and played the first one.

    PS: Just because I was curious, I just checked and found that all the original LSL adventures are available for free download now. I may try one of them just for nostalgic reasons. You'll find them via Google, without age restrictions.

    PPS: No age restrictions, my a... They have a few questions at the beginning to find out how old you are (at least on the first one, and based on 1987). Like whether Spiro Agnew was a social disease or a former Vice President, and three more things that seem to be too remote for me, since I actually didn't manage to get it started from the Internet Archive.
  • Posts: 9,853
    It is really confusing with the Xbox naming conventions these days.
    24bbnlcaiso51.jpg

    So it’s not just me I do feel a little better cause I felt like an idiot to be honest
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,588
    No, it's confusing as hell. I forgot which one I had before I got my Series X.
  • Posts: 380
    R.I.P. democracy in the UK. The man now chosen to decide the future of the working men and women of the United Kingdom chosen by just 180 MPs of his own party.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited October 2022 Posts: 3,154
    67 million people - and only 180 get to vote. Democracy in action, eh? Oh, wait...
  • MajorDSmytheMajorDSmythe "I tolerate this century, but I don't enjoy it."Moderator
    edited October 2022 Posts: 13,999
    Don't get me wrong, I am not thrilled at this. Rishi is all flash, no substance (unless you are one of his rich chums). But I am glad that Johnson dropped out of the running. I detest that man so much. He was an absolute f... flipping disgrace.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    Posts: 18,338
    Well, at least someone got to vote on it and the people voting were themselves democratically elected MPs of the UK House of Commons. Maybe some people would prefer the old days of the pre-1965 Conservative system of the "Magic Circle" when the Tory leader and thereby the Prime Minister emerged after soundings within the Conservative Party by the Party Chairman and a few Tory grandees. Going back into our so-called "democratic" British history was there a general election when Chamberlain, Churchill, Macmillan, Douglas-Home or Major assumed the premiership? I think not! That's to say nothing of Callaghan or Brown on the Labour side. We don't live in a presidential system (thank God) but a parliamentary democracy and there is no legal necessity for a General Election until the current five year parliamentary term ends in 2024.
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,588
    I'm not very politically intelligent so sorry if I come across as an idiot... but isn't that similar to how it works here in Canada? We elect MPs, a political party gets into power, and then that party selects a leader?

    It's not perfect obviously, but it's still the body politic voting a party into power?
  • ThunderfingerThunderfinger Das Boot Hill
    Posts: 45,489
    cooperman2 wrote: »
    R.I.P. democracy in the UK. The man now chosen to decide the future of the working men and women of the United Kingdom chosen by just 180 MPs of his own party.

    Don t mourn democracy. It s gone to a better place.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    I'm not very politically intelligent so sorry if I come across as an idiot... but isn't that similar to how it works here in Canada? We elect MPs, a political party gets into power, and then that party selects a leader?

    It's not perfect obviously, but it's still the body politic voting a party into power?

    Yes and no.
    This type of parliamentary system is very wide spread. It's one of the two major systems of (amongst other things) selecting Heads of Governments. Germany is the same for example. The people elect a parliament and said parliament then elects the Head of Government. And in turn it's quite possible that one HoG leaves office and another is selected without a general election in between. The UK is a slightly special situation in this in so far as it also has a majoritarian system that (roughly) leads to two large party blocs that vie for control. In Germany or many Northern countries, the Government could change, because the coalition supporting it changes and all of that happens without an election.
    At the end of the day, nobody is saying that Sunak's election is unconstitutional. On the other hand, we have developed the expectation (and as @Dragonpol alludes to, this used to be quite different even though the basic constitutional system hasn't changed a whole lot) that leaders have a more direct democratic mandate, even in an indirect system such as this.
    This is exacerbated in this case by two Factors: 1. It could be argued the current majority was won on the back of the then leader and candidate Boris Johnson. Now that he no longer is Prime Minister the result of the last election is in a way "democratically emptied" because the pre-conditions the people voted on are no longer met. 2. The Conservatives already did something similar to disastrous effect and the Prime Minister they selected had to resign after, what 42 days?
    In a democratic system, we nowadays generally conceive of the ultimate way to solve an impasse to be an election. If the power structures are unclear or there has been a massive change in circumstance, you better let the people decide (insert Brexit joke here).
  • echoecho 007 in New York
    Posts: 6,356
    The political/economic unrest in the UK scares me because it tends to presage the same here in the US. Brexit and then Trump. This, and then god help us, Trump again?
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    Posts: 3,154
    Here's another little-known quirk of British democracy: the king actually has the power to appoint any MP of any party to be Prime Minister. It doesn't have to be the leader of the party that won the most seats. The king can also remove a prime minister. People say 'oh, but that would never happen' - yet these Royal Prerogatives haven't been removed. Just in case, eh?
  • Posts: 15,218
    I'm not very politically intelligent so sorry if I come across as an idiot... but isn't that similar to how it works here in Canada? We elect MPs, a political party gets into power, and then that party selects a leader?

    It's not perfect obviously, but it's still the body politic voting a party into power?

    Yes that's the same system: parliamentary democracy, "first past the post". We don't vote for our PM or our government, but for people to represent us. It is then the Parliament that determines the party that will make the government. At least it's the case de jure. De facto, it's another matter entirely and neither Sunak nor Truss before him is governing with a mandate from the voters.
    So yeah bottom line the tories have no legitimacy and should call a general election.
  • DragonpolDragonpol https://thebondologistblog.blogspot.com
    edited October 2022 Posts: 18,338
    Venutius wrote: »
    Here's another little-known quirk of British democracy: the king actually has the power to appoint any MP of any party to be Prime Minister. It doesn't have to be the leader of the party that won the most seats. The king can also remove a prime minister. People say 'oh, but that would never happen' - yet these Royal Prerogatives haven't been removed. Just in case, eh?

    That may be the black letter law interpretation but by constitutional convention the monarch appoints the leader of the largest party in the House of Commons to be the prime minister as he is of course the most likely to command the confidence of the House of Commons. Constitutional conventions often soften the effect of the few royal prerogatives that remain personally to the monarch and that have not been turned over to ministers of the Crown. Of course, royal prerogatives aren't sacrosanct and can be amended or replaced by statute law, though not by the courts. I did a 20,000 word dissertation for my Masters in Law on one of the royal prerogatives used by the prime minister so I do know a bit about them as a result of my studies.
  • VenutiusVenutius Yorkshire
    edited October 2022 Posts: 3,154
    Indeed, so. My Masters dissertation was in Historical Archaeology, so I'd be out of my depth in any serious discussion on these issues. It's the absurdity of retaining a royal prerogative if it'll never be used that amuses me. Vot is point? Although, to play Devil's Advocate, if royal prerogatives were used to remove an Australian Prime Minister in the '70s, are they really such a harmless historical anomaly? If it's good enough for Oz, would it really never be used here?
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    @Dragonpol really seems to be the authority on this, but my view as a lapsed political scientist is that basically we (as in the established liberal democracies of the world) have kind of come to the conclusion that while we need a strictly codified system of taking election results and making a government out of it as a backup, it doesn't matter 99,9% of the time. Most of the time it involves a Head of State calling on someone to form a government, in other cases it's more just parliament coming together and voting for someone or some group. Whatever the technical case may be, the vast majority of the time, we know pretty well who the Head of Government will be pretty quickly after the election and then nobody tries to litigate through all the constitutional conventions, because it's a moot point. One party or person has the support of the electorate, so they should lead. Whether that then is done through a King telling them to, a President inviting them to, or them being the first to pray to the holy pineapple (honestly, not that far off from some of the stuff in the UK) doesn't strictly matter.

    The problem - and the really concerning stuff - is that of course many of the "established liberal democracies" aren't all that established anymore and feel less and less liberal or - as we are kind of discussing - like democracies. The whole thing I wrote out above obviously did not work at all in the US last year (and to a different degree in 2000) and with the stalwart Queen Elizabeth II gone and one party seemingly just being able to nominate one clown after the other for Prime Minister without any input from the people, the always precarious constitutional situation in the UK is taking quite a few knocks as well. And then we suddenly find ourselves in situations where you more and more have to think about where power really lies and not what we have long established and held as theatrical version of conveying power.
    At a very base form, politics describes the way we organize power in a community of people. Over time, we have gotten used to a lot of inherent assumptions. This person (policeman, lady in some local government department that makes decisions, politicians, judges and so on) has power over me, because that is the way it works. We all roughly believe in the system and we believe if there is a gross injustice, we can either call on a higher authority or through that higher authority out of office by vote. That believe is dying and we are more and more getting back to in-person power i.e. violence.
  • Posts: 9,853
    I love how I have foot ache that comes and goes and a cough that has been with me for three weeks (it’s not Covid) and yet every time I think I am going to get it check it leaves for a few hours only to spring up later…..

    My body is fighting against me
  • SIS_HQSIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters
    Posts: 3,800
    Risico007 wrote: »
    I love how I have foot ache that comes and goes and a cough that has been with me for three weeks (it’s not Covid) and yet every time I think I am going to get it check it leaves for a few hours only to spring up later…..

    My body is fighting against me

    Hoping for your quick recovery, sir.
  • j_w_pepperj_w_pepper Born on the bayou, but I now hear a new dog barkin'
    Posts: 9,073
    Me too ('cause I know that feeling). But keep complaining anyway. This is "The whinging, moaning, complaining, ranting, letting off steam thread", so don't tell us everything is ok now. It'll ruin the discussion and run counter to the thread subject. (No hard feeling, SCNR.)
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,298
    @Dragonpol really seems to be the authority on this, but my view as a lapsed political scientist is that basically we (as in the established liberal democracies of the world) have kind of come to the conclusion that while we need a strictly codified system of taking election results and making a government out of it as a backup, it doesn't matter 99,9% of the time. Most of the time it involves a Head of State calling on someone to form a government, in other cases it's more just parliament coming together and voting for someone or some group. Whatever the technical case may be, the vast majority of the time, we know pretty well who the Head of Government will be pretty quickly after the election and then nobody tries to litigate through all the constitutional conventions, because it's a moot point. One party or person has the support of the electorate, so they should lead. Whether that then is done through a King telling them to, a President inviting them to, or them being the first to pray to the holy pineapple (honestly, not that far off from some of the stuff in the UK) doesn't strictly matter.

    The problem - and the really concerning stuff - is that of course many of the "established liberal democracies" aren't all that established anymore and feel less and less liberal or - as we are kind of discussing - like democracies. The whole thing I wrote out above obviously did not work at all in the US last year (and to a different degree in 2000) and with the stalwart Queen Elizabeth II gone and one party seemingly just being able to nominate one clown after the other for Prime Minister without any input from the people, the always precarious constitutional situation in the UK is taking quite a few knocks as well. And then we suddenly find ourselves in situations where you more and more have to think about where power really lies and not what we have long established and held as theatrical version of conveying power.
    At a very base form, politics describes the way we organize power in a community of people. Over time, we have gotten used to a lot of inherent assumptions. This person (policeman, lady in some local government department that makes decisions, politicians, judges and so on) has power over me, because that is the way it works. We all roughly believe in the system and we believe if there is a gross injustice, we can either call on a higher authority or through that higher authority out of office by vote. That believe is dying and we are more and more getting back to in-person power i.e. violence.

    As far as I know there's only one true democracy in the world, and that's Switserland. Any country that has any form of layering, of some sort of 'protection' against 'the craze of the day' is actually doing the opposite of what it intends to do, as such functions are filled by humans who are just as fallible as the rest of humanity. Take the electoral college. In the 2016 elections there were the highest amount of not-votes-for-their-candidate ever: most of them were democrats not voting for Hilary. Not that it made any difference, but usually a craze is followed by a loud minority. If you then make the amount of people that have to decide smaller, you automatically make it less democratic and more susceptible to crazes. We have the same within political parties, as do the Brits as has been clearly shown the last few days.
  • Posts: 9,853
    j_w_pepper wrote: »
    Me too ('cause I know that feeling). But keep complaining anyway. This is "The whinging, moaning, complaining, ranting, letting off steam thread", so don't tell us everything is ok now. It'll ruin the discussion and run counter to the thread subject. (No hard feeling, SCNR.)

    Well I nearly died in a car accident today so yeah

    450 total between a ticket and a row out of a bush
  • NickTwentyTwoNickTwentyTwo Vancouver, BC, Canada
    Posts: 7,588
    Sorry to hear that! Hope you're okay! I've been in a few accidents myself, very scary.
  • ImpertinentGoonImpertinentGoon Everybody needs a hobby.
    Posts: 1,351
    @Dragonpol really seems to be the authority on this, but my view as a lapsed political scientist is that basically we (as in the established liberal democracies of the world) have kind of come to the conclusion that while we need a strictly codified system of taking election results and making a government out of it as a backup, it doesn't matter 99,9% of the time. Most of the time it involves a Head of State calling on someone to form a government, in other cases it's more just parliament coming together and voting for someone or some group. Whatever the technical case may be, the vast majority of the time, we know pretty well who the Head of Government will be pretty quickly after the election and then nobody tries to litigate through all the constitutional conventions, because it's a moot point. One party or person has the support of the electorate, so they should lead. Whether that then is done through a King telling them to, a President inviting them to, or them being the first to pray to the holy pineapple (honestly, not that far off from some of the stuff in the UK) doesn't strictly matter.

    The problem - and the really concerning stuff - is that of course many of the "established liberal democracies" aren't all that established anymore and feel less and less liberal or - as we are kind of discussing - like democracies. The whole thing I wrote out above obviously did not work at all in the US last year (and to a different degree in 2000) and with the stalwart Queen Elizabeth II gone and one party seemingly just being able to nominate one clown after the other for Prime Minister without any input from the people, the always precarious constitutional situation in the UK is taking quite a few knocks as well. And then we suddenly find ourselves in situations where you more and more have to think about where power really lies and not what we have long established and held as theatrical version of conveying power.
    At a very base form, politics describes the way we organize power in a community of people. Over time, we have gotten used to a lot of inherent assumptions. This person (policeman, lady in some local government department that makes decisions, politicians, judges and so on) has power over me, because that is the way it works. We all roughly believe in the system and we believe if there is a gross injustice, we can either call on a higher authority or through that higher authority out of office by vote. That believe is dying and we are more and more getting back to in-person power i.e. violence.

    As far as I know there's only one true democracy in the world, and that's Switserland. Any country that has any form of layering, of some sort of 'protection' against 'the craze of the day' is actually doing the opposite of what it intends to do, as such functions are filled by humans who are just as fallible as the rest of humanity. Take the electoral college. In the 2016 elections there were the highest amount of not-votes-for-their-candidate ever: most of them were democrats not voting for Hilary. Not that it made any difference, but usually a craze is followed by a loud minority. If you then make the amount of people that have to decide smaller, you automatically make it less democratic and more susceptible to crazes. We have the same within political parties, as do the Brits as has been clearly shown the last few days.

    Again, yes and no.
    There are two cantons (think counties, but due to Switzerland being pretty small, this is the organizational level below the national level) in Switzerland that have classic direct democracy. Meaning, they don't have a parliament, but once a year all the citizens come together on a big square and decide on stuff. There is a kind of organizing committee and an executive, but the Landesgemeinde is where it really happens. The other 24 cantons don't have this anymore. Additionally, any law the national parliament passes including the constitution can be abolished or amended by citizens' initiative and then a national vote. That's what people generally point towards when they talk about Switzerland being a direct democracy.
    On the other hand, Switzerland has a very unique system of governments and how they are created. The Swiss "Head of State" is not a person, but a council of seven people (one is technically the President, but that only means they have to go to more official functions. They don't have any more power than the other six) and these seven people have come from basically the same four parties since 1959 and seats are apportioned according to a "magic formula". Furthermore, there usually are no elections fought for the seats on this council and someone is usually only replaced when they resign. When the balance of power between parties shifted in 2003 they changed the formula slightly, but still the outcome of national elections has little to no bearing on the composition of the government. Imagine, no matter what a UK General Election's outcome was, the cabinet would be made up by two Tories, two people from the Labour party, one from the SNP, one from the Liberal Democrats and one from the Greens.
    And then it's all an attempt at balancing these things. The government generally tries to find a consensus approach and then citizens can bowl all that over, if enough of them think the consensus is bad.
  • CommanderRossCommanderRoss The bottom of a pitch lake in Eastern Trinidad, place called La Brea
    Posts: 8,298
    @Dragonpol really seems to be the authority on this, but my view as a lapsed political scientist is that basically we (as in the established liberal democracies of the world) have kind of come to the conclusion that while we need a strictly codified system of taking election results and making a government out of it as a backup, it doesn't matter 99,9% of the time. Most of the time it involves a Head of State calling on someone to form a government, in other cases it's more just parliament coming together and voting for someone or some group. Whatever the technical case may be, the vast majority of the time, we know pretty well who the Head of Government will be pretty quickly after the election and then nobody tries to litigate through all the constitutional conventions, because it's a moot point. One party or person has the support of the electorate, so they should lead. Whether that then is done through a King telling them to, a President inviting them to, or them being the first to pray to the holy pineapple (honestly, not that far off from some of the stuff in the UK) doesn't strictly matter.

    The problem - and the really concerning stuff - is that of course many of the "established liberal democracies" aren't all that established anymore and feel less and less liberal or - as we are kind of discussing - like democracies. The whole thing I wrote out above obviously did not work at all in the US last year (and to a different degree in 2000) and with the stalwart Queen Elizabeth II gone and one party seemingly just being able to nominate one clown after the other for Prime Minister without any input from the people, the always precarious constitutional situation in the UK is taking quite a few knocks as well. And then we suddenly find ourselves in situations where you more and more have to think about where power really lies and not what we have long established and held as theatrical version of conveying power.
    At a very base form, politics describes the way we organize power in a community of people. Over time, we have gotten used to a lot of inherent assumptions. This person (policeman, lady in some local government department that makes decisions, politicians, judges and so on) has power over me, because that is the way it works. We all roughly believe in the system and we believe if there is a gross injustice, we can either call on a higher authority or through that higher authority out of office by vote. That believe is dying and we are more and more getting back to in-person power i.e. violence.

    As far as I know there's only one true democracy in the world, and that's Switserland. Any country that has any form of layering, of some sort of 'protection' against 'the craze of the day' is actually doing the opposite of what it intends to do, as such functions are filled by humans who are just as fallible as the rest of humanity. Take the electoral college. In the 2016 elections there were the highest amount of not-votes-for-their-candidate ever: most of them were democrats not voting for Hilary. Not that it made any difference, but usually a craze is followed by a loud minority. If you then make the amount of people that have to decide smaller, you automatically make it less democratic and more susceptible to crazes. We have the same within political parties, as do the Brits as has been clearly shown the last few days.

    Again, yes and no.
    There are two cantons (think counties, but due to Switzerland being pretty small, this is the organizational level below the national level) in Switzerland that have classic direct democracy. Meaning, they don't have a parliament, but once a year all the citizens come together on a big square and decide on stuff. There is a kind of organizing committee and an executive, but the Landesgemeinde is where it really happens. The other 24 cantons don't have this anymore. Additionally, any law the national parliament passes including the constitution can be abolished or amended by citizens' initiative and then a national vote. That's what people generally point towards when they talk about Switzerland being a direct democracy.
    On the other hand, Switzerland has a very unique system of governments and how they are created. The Swiss "Head of State" is not a person, but a council of seven people (one is technically the President, but that only means they have to go to more official functions. They don't have any more power than the other six) and these seven people have come from basically the same four parties since 1959 and seats are apportioned according to a "magic formula". Furthermore, there usually are no elections fought for the seats on this council and someone is usually only replaced when they resign. When the balance of power between parties shifted in 2003 they changed the formula slightly, but still the outcome of national elections has little to no bearing on the composition of the government. Imagine, no matter what a UK General Election's outcome was, the cabinet would be made up by two Tories, two people from the Labour party, one from the SNP, one from the Liberal Democrats and one from the Greens.
    And then it's all an attempt at balancing these things. The government generally tries to find a consensus approach and then citizens can bowl all that over, if enough of them think the consensus is bad.

    Thanks for the explanation! Well, to me it sounds like a very stable system where everybody has a vote and, as you said, the people can overrule their government at any time. I think that's very important and you don't see that in many places. Here in the Netherlands, i.e. they voted the corrective referendum away after the first one didn't have the results they expected. Suddenly it was all about 'the people don't understand' and 'it's beeing hijacked by populists'.

    Pity the other Cantons gave up on it, I still believe that's the way to go.
  • SIS_HQSIS_HQ At the Vauxhall Headquarters
    edited October 2022 Posts: 3,800
    Elon Musk closes Twitter deal and fires top executives

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/10/27/twitter-elon-musk/

    Edit: What do you think would happen next? All of our information will be send to the Tesla? 😂
  • Posts: 12,514
    Jfc
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