Bad beat/Moaning/Venting thread - It's the end of the world as we know it

[Degag]

He's not wrong. From today's TheKnowledge.

In general i’d agree with you. I mean we undoubtedly made mistakes ourselves, some stupid ones, but most based on the fact that the whole thing was very difficult, if not impossible to mitigate against. However i think the mistakes we made were done with the population’s safety and health in the highest regard. Which i guess why it felt quite draconian at times. So, while there should and will be a covid enquiry here, it shouldn’t turn into an inquisition IMO.

However, it was clear then, and it’s clear now that the UKs response was chaotic and a shambles. The Pm saying ‘Let the bodies pile high.’ Some of the stuff coming out of it is mind boggling. That needs an inquisition IMO.

[Raoul Duke III]

One issue with the Israeli thing. It has become clear over the last month or so that you are not allowed to express even a slightly negative view of Israel or be accused of anti-semitism and potentially hounded out of a job. We saw that with Paddy in our domestic case, or the Irish girl working for Wix. Internationally we've seen it all over the place - including a group of Harvard kids being told that them signing a very reasonable petition means they won't be eligible for positions after graduating.

What is the logical response then to no longer being allowed to have legitimate public views on atrocities carried out be a supposedly advanced country?

Isn't it the case that:

• it's absolutely fine to criticise Israel
• it's absolutely not fine to express anti-semitic views?

I mean I'm quite happy to say that Netanyahu is a crook who should be in jail. And that Israel has illegally grabbed, and continues to grab, Palestinian land in the West Bank. That seems fine.
But if I threw in anti-semitic tropes on top of that, that would not be fine.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Isn't it the case that:

• it's absolutely fine to criticise Israel
• it's absolutely not fine to express anti-semitic views?

I mean I'm quite happy to say that Netanyahu is a crook who should be in jail. And that Israel has illegally grabbed, and continues to grab, Palestinian land in the West Bank. That seems fine.
But if I threw in anti-semitic tropes on top of that, that would not be fine.

What did Paddy Cosgrove say that was an anti semitic view? Or the WIX girl? Or Leo Varadkar last week?

There is a very definite and chilling air that you cannot under any circumstance criticise Israel.

And indeed you might say that you are " quite happy to say that Israel has illegally grabbed, and continues to grab, Palestinian land in the West Bank.", but the reality is that you wouldn't actually post that somewhere with your name attached because your know theres a chance your employer might find it and make an issue about it. Thats the chilling air ... And dare I say it - thats the freakin Nazism thats at play - that even broad supporters of the state are having the choose their words carefully. Thats not normal.




.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

In general i’d agree with you. I mean we undoubtedly made mistakes ourselves, some stupid ones, but most based on the fact that the whole thing was very difficult, if not impossible to mitigate against. However i think the mistakes we made were done with the population’s safety and health in the highest regard. Which i guess why it felt quite draconian at times. So, while there should and will be a covid enquiry here, it shouldn’t turn into an inquisition IMO.

However, it was clear then, and it’s clear now that the UKs response was chaotic and a shambles. The Pm saying ‘Let the bodies pile high.’ Some of the stuff coming out of it is mind boggling. That needs an inquisition IMO.

I wonder is the problem the media. That it would be really valuable to have a real discussion about what we can learn about doing this thing better in future, but the reality is that its not possible because its too easy to just go for the media clicks-stories.

[Solksjaer!]

If hating how Israel murders indiscriminately is antiJew than call me out. The semantics of being called anything these days is diluted by wokeism. There are things like racism and discrimination that up to recently stood out on their own as pretty vile are now lumped into a vast array of No Nos like gender id etc . We need a league table so rascist can climb out from under their rocks and claim, meh you lefties are too woke.


Not sure ya follow me, no time to edit and ponder .

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

One last thing from me before finally deciding to get some meaningful work done - if I'm reading this correctly (and there's some doubts about that as not everything is measured in the same way) then card payments are now 89% of monthly spending transactions and cash is 11%. That's €7.9 billion spent by card vs €1.1 billion in cash withdrawals.

Cash seems to have become very much a minority sport.

Although only half of that 8 bil or so in card payments is at point-of-sale, the rest is online purchases or bill payments. So, if we assume that all of that cash withdrawal from ATMs ends up being spent in shops, then thats 20% of shop spend thats by cash. Card payment in shops up 20% over the last year while cash spend has dropped a small bit.

You'd have to wonder if you were a new business setting up why you'd bother with introducing a cash infrastructure unless you were targetting drug dealers.

[6starpool]

If hating how Israel murders indiscriminately is antiJew than call me out. The semantics of being called anything these days is diluted by wokeism. There are things like racism and discrimination that up to recently stood out on their own as pretty vile are now lumped into a vast array of No Nos like gender id etc . We need a league table so rascist can climb out from under their rocks and claim, meh you lefties are too woke.


Not sure ya follow me, no time to edit and ponder .

This is a mad take. Many of the 'woke lefties' you mention here are very much on the side of Israel stopping killing so many people in Gaza. Criticising Israel has in some quarters been equated to anti-semitism by many Israelis and pro-Israelis for a long time, well before any of the gender nonsense, so the two things are in no way related I'd say.

[6starpool]

One last thing from me before finally deciding to get some meaningful work done - if I'm reading this correctly (and there's some doubts about that as not everything is measured in the same way) then card payments are now 89% of monthly spending transactions and cash is 11%. That's €7.9 billion spent by card vs €1.1 billion in cash withdrawals.

Cash seems to have become very much a minority sport.

Although only half of that 8 bil or so in card payments is at point-of-sale, the rest is online purchases or bill payments. So, if we assume that all of that cash withdrawal from ATMs ends up being spent in shops, then thats 20% of shop spend thats by cash. Card payment in shops up 20% over the last year while cash spend has dropped a small bit.

You'd have to wonder if you were a new business setting up why you'd bother with introducing a cash infrastructure unless you were targetting drug dealers.

Probably because legally you have to (as far as I know), plus having a cash infrastructure (as you call it) is probably more of a one off thing (till, secure short term storage maybe, and means to deposit it) rather than the ongoing charges associated with digital payments. Anyone starting off by cutting out 20% of the potential payments is also probably not a great business person. Mostly the first one though I believe.

[Denny Crane]

As someone on reddit notes:




No idea why the 'take a deep breath' thing works, but it does indeed work.

It's really lazy the last few weeks. Takes a bit of cajoling alright to get it to finish work. I imagine they iterate out these hacks over time.

I guess they should probably add a non-throttled tier.

[Denny Crane]

One issue with the Israeli thing. It has become clear over the last month or so that you are not allowed to express even a slightly negative view of Israel or be accused of anti-semitism and potentially hounded out of a job. We saw that with Paddy in our domestic case, or the Irish girl working for Wix. Internationally we've seen it all over the place - including a group of Harvard kids being told that them signing a very reasonable petition means they won't be eligible for positions after graduating.

What is the logical response then to no longer being allowed to have legitimate public views on atrocities carried out be a supposedly advanced country?

The logical response is that people will seek out like-minded people to have private discussions and build up clusters of awful views without the benefit of outside debate to filter out the madness.

The fact that theres even a debate as to whether you are allowed to criticise Israel for indiscriminately killing kids is a big part of the problem here. I mean we talk about propaganda from countries like Russia and China - but most of us have never really even seen that (we're just assured its out there) and have instead usually seen the exact opposite - propaganda against those countries. Real propaganda is what Israel is doing - the type of propaganda that makes you scared to even utter a mention of that country. I'm not sure I've ever seen anything like it before, where people would be literally scared to criticise a country for killing kids. Thats then, part of what pushes people underground and into these cesspits of awfulness. But generally its a really bad idea full-stop.

I'm not sure how reflective of things is. The youth of today is overwhelming being shown anti-isreal propoganda on social media, tiktoc in particular. And the vast majority of on campus campaigning has been anti- Israel and in many cases pro Hamas. The threat about the petition is a reaction to how colleges have handled things so far.

[Raoul Duke III]

And indeed you might say that you are " quite happy to say that Israel has illegally grabbed, and continues to grab, Palestinian land in the West Bank.", but the reality is that you wouldn't actually post that somewhere with your name attached because your know theres a chance your employer might find it and make an issue about it. Thats the chilling air ... And dare I say it - thats the freakin Nazism thats at play - that even broad supporters of the state are having the choose their words carefully. Thats not normal.
.

Eh, it's not just my view. It's the view of the EU and the UN!

I'm not sure your theory stands up to scrutiny.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Probably because legally you have to (as far as I know)

You don't. You might be forced to keep a cash option in the future if you are a large business though under laws under debate in EU at the moment.

Anyone starting off by cutting out 20% of the potential payments is also probably not a great business person. Mostly the first one though I believe.

You work in the IFSC, no? So you've probably seen how many new businesses there are opening as cash-free, so the assumption of them not being great business people doesn't quite make sense. Going cash free in a retail business anyway has loads of benefits:

1. No cash handling costs - not hugely different to card costs
2. No theft risk from customers and staff (staff in particular is a big deal)
3. Lower insurance costs as a result of lower theft risk
4. Quicker till service, meaning quicker customer throughput at busy times
5. Less till mistakes - customers highly likely to report being given too little change, a lot less likely to report being given too much change


This all adds up. Plus - you aren't losing '20% of potential payments' unless those 20% of customers don't have cards with which to pay, which essentially everyone does.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Eh, it's not just my view. It's the view of the EU and the UN!

I'm not sure your theory stands up to scrutiny.

Oh you don't need to justify it to me! I agree!

All I'm saying is that the reality is that you wouldn't post that on your e.g. FaceBook, because you would be scared that somebody would see it who would choose to take offence and that might backfire on you. Thats the cold hard reality. You would have this doubt in your head, nevermind the support of the EU and the UN at your back, before posting a perfectly valid criticism about Israel. You'd remember Leo last week and doublecheck the wording of what you are about to post. You'd remember WIX girl getting fired and have a quick thing about whether there's anyone in your company at a senior level that might take offense. You would definitely do all these things. And thats the chilling effect of the whole thing. That before expressing this perfectly valid view (that is shared by the EU and the UN as you say) you would have this very serious hesitation. Thats very effective propaganda and fear. And its quite unprecedented in recent times.

[Solksjaer!]

This is a mad take. Many of the 'woke lefties' you mention here are very much on the side of Israel stopping killing so many people in Gaza. Criticising Israel has in some quarters been equated to anti-semitism by many Israelis and pro-Israelis for a long time, well before any of the gender nonsense, so the two things are in no way related I'd say.

Its a mad take , i agree. The growth of right wing lunatics across the sea boards indicates a dilution of what is outrageous these days . The rocks are being pushed away more visibly and they come out screaming. Tis a mad take but its how it feels and I identify as a rock

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

I'm not sure how reflective of things is. The youth of today is overwhelming being shown anti-isreal propoganda on social media, tiktoc in particular. And the vast majority of on campus campaigning has been anti- Israel and in many cases pro Hamas. The threat about the petition is a reaction to how colleges have handled things so far.

In fairness something would have gone desperately wrong in society if the youth were protesting on behalf of the historical oppressors. (insert quote on every young man should be a liberal in his youth, a ... blahblahblah)

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

It's really lazy the last few weeks. Takes a bit of cajoling alright to get it to finish work. I imagine they iterate out these hacks over time.

I guess they should probably add a non-throttled tier.

Its definitely weak sauce at the moment. Just really reluctant to give the complete answers it is clearly capable of.

[DeadParrot]

They are properly cool. Probably one of the best cultural venues I've ever been in



Did you get the sense they were all Muslims or were they just a collection of loons?

Proper multi cultural collection.
Proper geezer type from manchester, suave looking middle eastern lad who seemed to own a fair amount of property around dublin and knew a lot about it
A few french lads, one black lad. All apparently friends who all met in Morocco. Maybe Legion? I dunno, they were a little vague about that part.
Drinking like fishes so would generally rule out the Muslim part. I honestly had them pegged as some kind of right wing group but it was just weird seeing the Manc guy speak fluent french one minute then give out about Jews in the most manc accent seconds later.
It was a weird experience.

[6starpool]

You don't. You might be forced to keep a cash option in the future if you are a large business though under laws under debate in EU at the moment.





You work in the IFSC, no? So you've probably seen how many new businesses there are opening as cash-free, so the assumption of them not being great business people doesn't quite make sense. Going cash free in a retail business anyway has loads of benefits:

1. No cash handling costs - not hugely different to card costs
2. No theft risk from customers and staff (staff in particular is a big deal)
3. Lower insurance costs as a result of lower theft risk
4. Quicker till service, meaning quicker customer throughput at busy times
5. Less till mistakes - customers highly likely to report being given too little change, a lot less likely to report being given too much change


This all adds up. Plus - you aren't losing '20% of potential payments' unless those 20% of customers don't have cards with which to pay, which essentially everyone does.

Last day I worked in an office was the 29th Feb.

I almost never use cash these days, I'd say I've gone to an ATM less than 5 times in the last 6 or so years.

[Raoul Duke III]

Oh you don't need to justify it to me! I agree!

All I'm saying is that the reality is that you wouldn't post that on your e.g. FaceBook, because you would be scared that somebody would see it who would choose to take offence and that might backfire on you. Thats the cold hard reality. You would have this doubt in your head, nevermind the support of the EU and the UN at your back, before posting a perfectly valid criticism about Israel. You'd remember Leo last week and doublecheck the wording of what you are about to post. You'd remember WIX girl getting fired and have a quick thing about whether there's anyone in your company at a senior level that might take offense. You would definitely do all these things. And thats the chilling effect of the whole thing. That before expressing this perfectly valid view (that is shared by the EU and the UN as you say) you would have this very serious hesitation. Thats very effective propaganda and fear. And its quite unprecedented in recent times.

If I were to use Facebook, I'd be perfectly happy to post it there. Or Twitter.

Posting political views on Linkedin is so egregiously stupid that I think it should be an automatic disqualification from all roles.

[Degag]

You don't. You might be forced to keep a cash option in the future if you are a large business though under laws under debate in EU at the moment.





You work in the IFSC, no? So you've probably seen how many new businesses there are opening as cash-free, so the assumption of them not being great business people doesn't quite make sense. Going cash free in a retail business anyway has loads of benefits:

1. No cash handling costs - not hugely different to card costs
2. No theft risk from customers and staff (staff in particular is a big deal)
3. Lower insurance costs as a result of lower theft risk
4. Quicker till service, meaning quicker customer throughput at busy times
5. Less till mistakes - customers highly likely to report being given too little change, a lot less likely to report being given too much change


This all adds up. Plus - you aren't losing '20% of potential payments' unless those 20% of customers don't have cards with which to pay, which essentially everyone does.

You seem to have an infatuation with the death of cash. You post the same type of posts every 3-6 months it seems.

Don’t see it disappearing in my lifetime anyway, or at least the short to medium term, it will always have its place albeit to a continuing lesser degree i imagine.

Those reasons may be nefarious in many cases (criminal, cash in hand jobs, tax avoidance etc) but also for somewhat grey subjects (loading money into a betting account etc)

Card systems/electricity go down also, which happened to me a couple of times recently, which means card only places would have to close their doors essentially.

The two can co-exist quite fine.

[Raoul Duke III]

I'm not sure how reflective of things is. The youth of today is overwhelming being shown anti-isreal propoganda on social media, tiktoc in particular. And the vast majority of on campus campaigning has been anti- Israel and in many cases pro Hamas. The threat about the petition is a reaction to how colleges have handled things so far.

I'm sure the average Irish person sees and hears 10x the quantity of pro-Palestinian material than they do pro-Israeli. And some of that is blatantly racist scutter (especially on social media).

[Raoul Duke III]

Last day I worked in an office was the 29th Feb.

The last 29th of Feb was in 2020 so that's quite the run you have going.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

You seem to have an infatuation with the death of cash. You post the same type of posts every 3-6 months it seems.

Don’t see it disappearing in my lifetime anyway, or at least the short to medium term, it will always have its place albeit to a continuing lesser degree i imagine.

Those reasons may be nefarious in many cases (criminal, cash in hand jobs, tax avoidance etc) but also for somewhat grey subjects (loading money into a betting account etc)

Card systems/electricity go down also, which happened to me a couple of times recently, which means card only places would have to close their doors essentially.

The two can co-exist quite fine.

Yes. In advance of the monthly releases (hence the updates over time, as information changes over time) I get a particularly large tub of industrial lube from Chadwicks. I used to order this from Amazon, but really thats for amateur hour - like whacking off to chaturbate. What you really need for Central Bank Money and Payments release (ohh-err) day is the industrial stuff. I try not to make it weird though. Like i've the standard A2 mockup done of the Central Bank Governor and the head of the Financial Services Union in my cellar, alongside the - really a barrel not a tub of - lube, but no chains or asphixiation stuff. I play a brief Bach intro to build up the moment and then *ping* - at 9am on the last day of every month that glorious email arrives saying 'card payments rise again, only conspiracy theorists, drug dealers, and tax evaders still use cash' and then really all the rules are off. Its a messy but highly pleasing day.

[MysteryGuest]

Hope McGregor gets some fentanyl laced coke soon- prob unlikely as he has good connects I’m sure

[DeadParrot]

The last 29th of Feb was in 2020 so that's quite the run you have going.

It was Feb 2019 for me

[6starpool]

The last 29th of Feb was in 2020 so that's quite the run you have going.

Yep. Started 2 weeks parents leave that day, so by the time I was due to go back in mid-March the world had changed.

[Dice75]

It was Feb 2019 for me

The day before we drew with Cameroon in 2002 for me

[Strewelpeter]

1. No cash handling costs - not hugely different to card costs

For small operators cash was always hugely more expensive than card though the true cost of cash handling are seldom recognised or accounted for as being separate from general cost of doing business expenses. Crucially for smaller operations the benefit of being able to dodge tax with cash makes it a very attractive proposition.

Back when a Tesco mega store was clearing close to a million cash a day in Christmas week they had finessed costs down to 3% which is c. double what they pay for card transactions but now that they are doing <200K in cash in the same period it's hard to imagine the cost to them of handling it is very much less. I'd be surprised if they can get it under 5% these days.

Everybody except a certain cohort of the general public wants to be rid of cash but it is unlikely to happen unless someone underwrites creation of a fully anonymous untraceable digital wallet.

Was looking at banking intelligence reports about the future of cash today and across much of Africa and Asia despite a huge increase in the % of people banking and that will continue to grow they are expecting that >90% of transactions will still be cash in 5 years and >75% in 10 years. I'm not convinced but we'll see.

[dinekes]

Last day I worked in an office was the 29th Feb.

I almost never use cash these days, I'd say I've gone to an ATM less than 5 times in the last 6 or so years.

Rarely use it myself except for the local Chinese and Pizzeria who for some innocent reason only take cash!

Its also very handy to tot up your rounds while recovering from hangover.

[dinekes]

Cash handling is an absolute pain.
Check the float in the morning ..double check it
Constantly running out of change because the owners a tosser
and having to rely on neighbouring shops.

Someone handing you a soiled note with black nails or the coughers and sneezers who put hand to mouth then root around for their cash.

Get the float ready in the evening and again never the correct amount of notes or change because the owners still a tosser.

Out by €20

Blame Tibor



Edit Was an absolute pain!

[Strewelpeter]

Some proper shooting yourself in the foot (or should that be kneecapping) stuff from SF/IRA since Mary Lou came back on the scene.

Bad enough to go ahead with an absurd waste of a no confidence motion in McEntee but maybe they persisted because some genius thought they would get bonus points by forcing Eamonn Ryan to fly back from Dubai but all that did was give the SD's an open goal for Whitmore to score into.
Expect the focus of the debate tomorrow to be wholly on what the country will look like when Europe's most successful serial killer could be appointed minister for justice after the next election.

[BennyHiFi]

Was looking at banking intelligence reports about the future of cash today and across much of Africa and Asia despite a huge increase in the % of people banking and that will continue to grow they are expecting that >90% of transactions will still be cash in 5 years and >75% in 10 years. I'm not convinced but we'll see.

Funnily enough I got my start in journalism writing 'banking intelligence' reports.

Indeed, I once wrote a book called E-purses: Future Money or False Dawn? - https://www.findbookprices.com/isbn/9781860681516/ - i think it would have cost about £600 per copy at the time.

It was 23 years ago, so I suppose we know the answer now

[Hectorjelly]

Screenshot 2023-12-04 144138.png

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Funnily enough I got my start in journalism writing 'banking intelligence' reports.

Indeed, I once wrote a book called E-purses: Future Money or False Dawn? - https://www.findbookprices.com/isbn/9781860681516/ - i think it would have cost about £600 per copy at the time.

It was 23 years ago, so I suppose we know the answer now

ha, thats brilliant!

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Seems the UK football media rights have reached their peak - maintaining contract prices with Sky Sports - just about - but only by significantly increasing the number of televised matches. You'd have to wonder what the Sky Sports plan is. Like they've made it now so expensive per month that I was reading a thread on reddit about 80-year-old rural Irish lads working out how to use firesticks to avoid paying Sky. If the average 80-year-old can work it out, then theres a very rotten core at the heart of the Sky Sports business model.

[hotspur]

Expect the focus of the debate tomorrow to be wholly on what the country will look like when Europe's most successful serial killer could be appointed minister for justice after the next election.

To whom are you referring?

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

To whom are you referring?

Presumably? https://www.independent.ie/irish-new.../28951973.html

50+ murders does suggest either he was fearful of a poor performance appraisal at the end of the year, or he has a deep deep deep love for a bit of aul murderin

[hotspur]

Presumably? https://www.independent.ie/irish-new.../28951973.html

50+ murders does suggest either he was fearful of a poor performance appraisal at the end of the year, or he has a deep deep deep love for a bit of aul murderin

Ah auld Dessie. I was Googling their justice spokesperson Martin Kenny with suspicious fingers.

[Strewelpeter]

To whom are you referring?

Hitch could well say that, I couldn't possibly comment

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Hitch could well say that, I couldn't possibly comment

Just for the record, in case any serial killers are reading this, Strew telepatically told me to post that.







He lives near Naas dessie and you can probably find him by the abandoned ATMs littering his front garden.

[Strewelpeter]

Funnily enough I got my start in journalism writing 'banking intelligence' reports.

Indeed, I once wrote a book called E-purses: Future Money or False Dawn? - https://www.findbookprices.com/isbn/9781860681516/ - i think it would have cost about £600 per copy at the time.

It was 23 years ago, so I suppose we know the answer now

Amazing! I probably read that way back then. At that time I was working on an offline stored value e-purse system that we had live in Nigeria. There were lot's of interesting stories about that scheme, one was that having been designed for micro payments, because funds were guaranteed beyond the security offered by an individual bank in the consortium the cards became seen as a safe place to store liquidity and huge amounts were being stored on them. Once I saw logs where one card had a ridiculous balance on it, can't remember if it was 10 or 100 million $ worth!

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Did you ever see an obvious opportunity to steal millions strew? surely you must have had working on destitute systems in destitute parts of the world.

[Degag]

Seems the UK football media rights have reached their peak - maintaining contract prices with Sky Sports - just about - but only by significantly increasing the number of televised matches. You'd have to wonder what the Sky Sports plan is. Like they've made it now so expensive per month that I was reading a thread on reddit about 80-year-old lads working out how to use firesticks to avoid paying Sky. If the average 80-year-old can work it out, then theres a very rotten core at the heart of the Sky Sports business model.

A company i’d love to go bust. Price for Entertainment and sports is over 100 quid but you can get it for around 70 quid for 6 months. Problem being, when you ring back in 6 months to renew, you might spend an hour on the phone only for them to refuse to match the price.
Invariably after you play hard ball and cancel, they will either call or email you in a couple weeks time offering you the deal they previously refused to.
Very frustrating experience.

Price they charge the licenced trade is also scandalous. All to continue to pay Marcus Rashford 300k a week to trot around a pitch.

[Hectorjelly]

Here in Mexico, you can get all premiership games, including the ones "not on TV" for about $50 a year, the only downside is you get Mexican commentators who are absolutely dreadful (also it's in Spanish for all you gringos), they literally can't relax - 90mins of them constantly losing it. Zero chill whatsoever. You do get some funny commentary though, after Liverpool scored in the last minute the commentator went: gracias Liverpool, gracias futbol, gracias premier league!

[DeadParrot]

It was Feb 2019 for me

I don't think this is right either. Mid feb 2020.
Fucking time slip lost me a year in lockdowns. It was a few weeks before we had any lockdowns anyway

[Raoul Duke III]

Reading that Disrupted book that was recommended on here. You would like to think that the stuff described within could only apply in the frothiest of tech startups but sadly I recognise quite a lot of the behaviours!

[Emmet]

On the phone to Virgin Media yesterday about my bill

"you see the package I want is €65 per month for 2 years, I'm happy to pay that"
"that's for new customers only sir - we can offer you that same package for €114 per month for one year"
"Can you confirm that my partner, a new customer can avail of this offer if I cancel today and she calls back tomorrow?"
"yes"
"ok - instead of doing that, can you just give me that offer?"
"no"
"hmm - okay - I guess cancel?"

If it was a 10/15% inertia charge I'd get it - but almost 2x the price is insane [ especially as eir/vodafone are now able to compete via fibre ]

[Degag]

On the phone to Virgin Media yesterday about my bill

"you see the package I want is €65 per month for 2 years, I'm happy to pay that"
"that's for new customers only sir - we can offer you that same package for €114 per month for one year"
"Can you confirm that my partner, a new customer can avail of this offer if I cancel today and she calls back tomorrow?"
"yes"
"ok - instead of doing that, can you just give me that offer?"
"no"
"hmm - okay - I guess cancel?"

If it was a 10/15% inertia charge I'd get it - but almost 2x the price is insane [ especially as eir/vodafone are now able to compete via fibre ]

It seems like all phone/bb companies are also automatically putting their prices up by CPI plus 3%. This was 12% i think at my last renewal date. CPI i guess is understandable but the 3% strikes me as price gouging of sorts and if all these companies are doing it, it’s almost cartel like.

[Iago]

Seems the UK football media rights have reached their peak - maintaining contract prices with Sky Sports - just about - but only by significantly increasing the number of televised matches. You'd have to wonder what the Sky Sports plan is. Like they've made it now so expensive per month that I was reading a thread on reddit about 80-year-old rural Irish lads working out how to use firesticks to avoid paying Sky. If the average 80-year-old can work it out, then theres a very rotten core at the heart of the Sky Sports business model.

I pay €12.99 for DAZN in Spain and get every premier league match and some fa and league cup and championship matches. As well as the two eurosport channels, la liga femenina and a whole heap of other sports and docuseries. Of course it’s all in Spanish, including one interesting episode with an Irish guy who owns one of the most popular restaurants in Mallorca and is a die hard season ticket holder there. The Irish accent when speaking Spanish is truly a unique sound

I also pay €24 a month for 600mb fibre with 2 mobiles (100 minutes and 3gb of data each)

for balance, Movistar (sky equivalent here) works out at around €130 a month for tv, fibre basic mobile and sports coverage of la liga.

[oleras]

It seems like all phone/bb companies are also automatically putting their prices up by CPI plus 3%. This was 12% i think at my last renewal date. CPI i guess is understandable but the 3% strikes me as price gouging of sorts and if all these companies are doing it, it’s almost cartel like.

And the cheeky sods are calculating that % increase on the non discounted price, so if your package is 100 but you have 50% off for the 2 years, instead of that 12% increase on the 50 which would now be 56/month its now 62/month, effectively doubling the increase.

[6starpool]

I pay €12.99 for DAZN in Spain and get every premier league match and some fa and league cup and championship matches. As well as the two eurosport channels, la liga femenina and a whole heap of other sports and docuseries. Of course it’s all in Spanish, including one interesting episode with an Irish guy who owns one of the most popular restaurants in Mallorca and is a die hard season ticket holder there. The Irish accent when speaking Spanish is truly a unique sound

I also pay €24 a month for 600mb fibre with 2 mobiles (100 minutes and 3gb of data each)

for balance, Movistar (sky equivalent here) works out at around €130 a month for tv, fibre basic mobile and sports coverage of la liga.

With use of a VPN connected to Moldova or Ukraine (for signup and use) you can get Setanta Sports (randomly) with PL, Bundesliga, La Liga and more (not CL though unfortunately) and English comms for less than €2.50 a month. If you want to watch it on firestick though you need to sign in via a browser and watch that way as the app doesn't work on firestick as it is rubbish.

[Raoul Duke III]

Isn't it the case that:

• it's absolutely fine to criticise Israel
• it's absolutely not fine to express anti-semitic views?

I mean I'm quite happy to say that Netanyahu is a crook who should be in jail. And that Israel has illegally grabbed, and continues to grab, Palestinian land in the West Bank. That seems fine.
But if I threw in anti-semitic tropes on top of that, that would not be fine.

There's a good article here (with a slightly provocative headline) on anti-semitism today. Worth a read.

[Denny Crane]

Here in Mexico, you can get all premiership games, including the ones "not on TV" for about $50 a year, the only downside is you get Mexican commentators who are absolutely dreadful (also it's in Spanish for all you gringos), they literally can't relax - 90mins of them constantly losing it. Zero chill whatsoever. You do get some funny commentary though, after Liverpool scored in the last minute the commentator went: gracias Liverpool, gracias futbol, gracias premier league!

[Lazare]

On the phone to Virgin Media yesterday about my bill

"you see the package I want is €65 per month for 2 years, I'm happy to pay that"
"that's for new customers only sir - we can offer you that same package for €114 per month for one year"
"Can you confirm that my partner, a new customer can avail of this offer if I cancel today and she calls back tomorrow?"
"yes"
"ok - instead of doing that, can you just give me that offer?"
"no"
"hmm - okay - I guess cancel?"

If it was a 10/15% inertia charge I'd get it - but almost 2x the price is insane [ especially as eir/vodafone are now able to compete via fibre ]

They were giving away a €300 Xbox last week with that deal.

Kinda why I bought the Fire Stick tbh, after I discovered it was €114 p/m and no X Box.

[Lazare]

There's a good article here (with a slightly provocative headline) on anti-semitism today. Worth a read.

Is there an accessible version of that anywhere? Looks interesting.

[Raoul Duke III]

Is there an accessible version of that anywhere? Looks interesting.

Paging DeadParrott/6star.

[dobby]

Is there an accessible version of that anywhere? Looks interesting.

Try this.

https://archive.is/ZUrhn

[6starpool]

The magic of archive.is (and .ph too I think).

[Lao Lao]

On Cash v's card - I pay for virtually everything by card. Generally, the only reason I have any cash on me is when I pay for stuff for my Dad and he insists on paying me in cash, which I then generally lodge in my bank account.

That said, I hope cash never goes away - You need it for degening - Anybody who puts any form of betting, gambling, etc on their cards where there is a record of it needs their head examined!

Sky Sports / Virgin are absolute cunts on the tv packages. On my house in Coolock, there is apparently some sort of connector in our front garden (buried in the garden) that links up half the street with the other half. I'm not even sure if it is even still relevant as it goes back to the NTL days (NTL became UPC which became Virgin if I remember correctly?) - Anyway, part of the deal was that the connector went into the garden and we got half price TV for life. A few times they have tried to jack up the price to full amount and I advise them that I'm going out to dig up the garden and if anything gets damaged and half the street get cut off, it's not my fault. They soon relent and agree to continue the half price deal. They haven't tried it in ages in fairness to them so I am most likely BBVing myself as I type!

I'd love to get a firestick but Mrs Lao Lao is vehemently against them - She's apparently the only honest solicitor out there. On the flip side, with no Sky Sports in the apartment since I moved in about 7 years ago, I have had to go to the pub and drink beer in order to watch all sports events, even the ones on free to air.

[Hitchhiker's Guide To...]

Would anyone - Dublin based ideally - like a bottle of incredibly expensive (but free to you) baijiu?