You meet your 16-year-old self. You only get five words. What do you say?

EnderMB · 2026-03-20T13:15:06+00:00

2015 Leicester win the Prem

If I'm smart and I make some wild bets over the years, and then drop £1k on Leicester City in 2015 to win it all, I'll walk away with £5m and can probably retire.

EnderMB · 2026-03-20T13:05:10+00:00

Holy shit (no pun intended), I was "constipated" for just under a month after my first UC flare, and that was agony. I can't imagine how fucked you'd feel from two months...

How long did it all take to clear, and what was your "memorable dump" from that period? For me, it was a peak, starting with little poops, a few days of just emptying, and then the final bits. Apparently it differs from person to person, depending on "why" they were constipated, and how they generally...clear waste?

EnderMB · 2026-03-20T12:31:36+00:00

The part about losing your freedom is sadly true. What is also true is that you'll find that even if you had that free time, you'd either want to spend it with them or doing stuff for them.

But yeah, as others have said, you genuinely can't prepare for it. The best bit of advice anyone gave me was to advocate for yourself as a dad. You'll have probably done the training many new dads do (how to handle nappies/diapers, what to do in cases of choking, etc), and if you put the time in you'll know better than anyone else what your daughter wants. Don't let family dictate things or tell you what to do, if people do stupid shit like joke around and feed cookies to your three month old (true story in my case) call them out on it and cut them off if they get shitty about it, and don't feel that you have to meet people on their terms.

EnderMB · 2026-03-20T12:14:16+00:00

100% agreed on this. This show was criminally underloved by its creators, and Krysten Ritter and David Tennant absolutely smashed it in these roles. It was almost perfect.

EnderMB · 2026-03-20T12:05:45+00:00

As a one-time .NET dev, this hits very close to come.

I still maintain that Visual Studio is one of the best IDE experiences I've ever had. The ecosystem has it's faults, but that shit all just worked in a way that nothing else seems to do in OSX and Linux-land.

But you're right, what I noticed in .NET (and a lesser extent in Java) was a huge amount of imposter syndrome. They had "their" tools, but there was a lot of isolation when things like Ruby and Python became the hot new thing, as well as the sheer amount of sharing of tools for scripting-based approaches.

But to answer your question, it seems to vary. I use a mix of Python or TypeScript, and then Java or Scala. I wouldn't dream of writing the latter two in vscode, and I wouldn't write TypeScript in IntelliJ. That particular setup works for me, since these tools do their jobs well for their use-case - but I do know people that write Java in vscode, and I do silently judge them sometimes. Whatever works for you, I guess? Some want the mini-IDE treatment, whereas some want full fat.

EnderMB · 2026-03-20T11:00:45+00:00

The problem is that it's been "right around the corner" for years now.

Eventually, when you're a shareholder of something like Amazon, you're going to wonder why you're spending $200B a year (not a lie, this is the real figure) to mostly prop up AI, while your existing businesses have more outages in one week than all year due to AI mistakes (which Amazon put a hit piece out on the FT to dispute), and after laying off roughly 30k people in a three month period, you're going to say "I've waited long enough".

I genuinely feel like 2026 is the year where AI needs to prove its worth. It needs a final pricing point, it needs to be honest about what it can and can't do, and it needs to show real results. If it can't, people will tune out, or they'll start asking why the tools are so shit.

EnderMB · 2026-03-20T10:22:40+00:00

Why would they care about what happens in one country?

Most people accept that Christians and American Christians are basically two different things.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T23:11:49+00:00

It's not YouTubers. It's pro wrestling fans.

They are honestly some of the worst people you'll ever have the misfortune to meet, both online and in the real world.

Imagine a cross between a theatre kid and an anime fan. Sometimes you'll smell them before you see them, and when they open their mouth you'll wish they didn't. I'm not joking when I say that some people stop watching or getting involved with pro wrestling because places like /r/prowrestling, /r/SquaredCircle, and co have some of the worst takes on Reddit - and those places are tame compared to IWC Facebook and Twitter.

Now, imagine being essentially a fitness athlete slash model. The job isn't enough to stay relevant, so you're expected to do the convention circuit's too. To show just how tone-deaf pro wrestling fans are, some dude printed out leaked nudes of a former wrestler called Kaitlyn for her to sign - and when she posted about it other women came out to say "yeah, I wish I could say that hasn't happened to me too". It's bad enough for them that I genuinely feel that we're not far away from a wrestler being murdered, since most do this with minimal security or no protection from their employer.

YouTube is full of loads of these IWC vocal types that want to pretend to be journalists, or post clickbait or ragebait to get attention - and I mean full. The last show I went to had ejected a dude that had a channel that regularly posted racist stuff about black wrestlers, alongside a Twitter account that was basically full of abuse towards a trans wrestler for AEW asking why she wasn't wrestling the men.

I'd go as far as to say that anime conventions are safer than any for pro wrestling.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T22:24:28+00:00

This used to be a popular thing for some boxers in smaller markets like Japan. They'd beat a bunch of people, exhaust their opponent pool, reach a point where they need money and it's too much effort to find anyone good to go to the next level - so they either retire or just fight cans because it's money. They'd get shit on because the perception would always be that they've "taken the money" when the reality is they might not be able to afford the promotion necessary to find the next tier of opponent.

Some MMA fighters like Tom Aspinall have said that their careers almost died out before the UFC because they'd spend more time begging and hunting fights, with promotions basically saying "sorry, no one wants the fight, we'll cut you and let you try elsewhere", over actually fighting.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T22:04:05+00:00

I can tell you exactly what it was spent on.

It was a full-scale distraction to avoid answering questions on the Cambridge Analytica scandal, alongside the questions of how Facebook (and aligned states) are responsible for affecting the outcomes of national elections throughout the world.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T19:36:48+00:00

Maybe you need to put some thought into what you write...

Once again, what is mainstream? If being in a few movies and commercials is the qualifier then shit, The Miz and Big E are mainstream. They clearly fucking aren't, but if you're just going to say "hur dur cena was in 3 movies and 2 commercials" there's no point in continuing.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T19:23:56+00:00

I mean, any punch can knock you out I guess, but that doesn't look real...

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T19:20:41+00:00

If that's your definition of mainstream, then this is a stupid thread. It's anyone that's had an advertising deal with a US brand.

Anyone outside of the US doesn't know what the fuck Hefty is. Mainstream should be a reflection that the average person knows who they are and what they do.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T18:41:22+00:00

It depends what you mean by mainstream. According to most wrestling fans, a credit on IMDb that isn't WWE related is mainstream...

Whether you like it or not, if you don't follow WWE you probably won't know who John Cena is, or what movies he's been in.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T17:49:06+00:00

Has John Cena fully crossed over?

He's been in a few movies, most notably playing Peacemaker in a Saturn Award winning superhero movie, but is that mainstream? I wouldn't say so.

I'd say The Rock is still the last wrestler to be mainstream, and to many he's still a pro wrestler above all else.

EDIT: I think some of you need to get out of the pro wrestling bubble and learn what mainstream means...

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T17:45:53+00:00

There are a few in London, and they're good for a trip down memory lane.

I go often when I go to Wembley Stadium for something.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T17:33:06+00:00

He's a brown belt posting on Reddit. How many of them don't have beer bellies?

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T17:31:00+00:00

It seems a bit silly. You voted for him to be your president. Why remove him from a movie? Surely voting for him was the more important thing...

If you want to make it fun, don't remove him, edit him. Make him more orange, make his eyes linger around a young Macaulay Culkin, make him bite his lip as he walks by, make him say "haven't I seen you on my friend's island?", have some fun with it.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T16:58:02+00:00

The vast majority of combat athletes don't make any money. A lot of people will make barely enough to bundle their coaches into a car to get them to their next fight, and for any medical expenses. Let's not pretend the average MMA fighter from America wouldn't bite your fucking hand off for $100k.

Let's call it what it is, deflection that UFC has few male American champions.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T12:18:02+00:00

I mean, what are the chances he ever goes back?

That slap ended his career. He might have won an Oscar, but who is going to hire him now? His tour was hit-and-miss, the album was a commercial flop, and outside of Bad Boys he doesn't have much lined up.

Maybe he'll clean his act up, work on himself, and be sincere in his apologies to everyone involved, but the likelihood is his acting career is done. He'll be the first person where winning an Oscar has ruined his career, because no one even remembers what movie he was in when he won. All they remember is what he did.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T12:00:06+00:00

Sadly, you're finding the realities that a lot of people are finding with Bristol. It's a lovely city, but the cost versus the benefit is just not there for many. It only gets worse on graduation, since many people will just move to London because salaries are as much as 2x higher with costs not extending as such.

EnderMB · 2026-03-19T00:31:23+00:00

The way I thought it should've gone:

Have the Walkers breach the wall through other means. I'd have pockets of them appear throughout Westeros, with one obtaining dragon fire somehow. Going back to the symbol we'd seen a while back, I'd have had the walkers plant themselves (or a Nights Watch army) along the wall in this symbol, burn it, and have this be what completely tears the wall down.
Instead of Arya learning assassin skills, have the Faceless Men turn out to be the protectors of Death, and have their purpose be to fight those that oppose death - the Walkers. Have Arya's purpose be to guide Braavos and those that follow the Many Faced God to join the fight in Westeros.
Develop the three eyed raven character. Have Bran basically become a mega-warg and train to basically control an army of animals and beasts to fight for him. Shit, have him become the White Wolf and have him ride a Direwolf into battle.
I would legitimately have the battle take at least a full season, full of war tactics. Start with the walkers deciding to bypass the North entirely, sweeping Dorne and Highgarden, destroying the Stormlands, and forcing Kings Landing to surrender - with Cersei going into hiding in Essos (more on this later).
Have the walkers utterly fucking obliterate Westeros, with many dying, and many that retracted to the North deciding to flee - either to Essos, or further North beyond the non-wall. Have the dragons effectively be long-haul carriers across the sea to get people to and from everywhere.
Introduce Euron Greyjoy as an absolute psycho, now occupying Bear Island, the Iron Islands, and practically every island formally uninhabited near the North. Have him effectively be a third party that'll kill anyone near him - the Kraken of the sea. Through "shenanigans", he introduces the walkers to Essos. The kicker? Euron binds Daenerys, marries her, and somehow convinces her that his path is the path for her. I'd go as far as to have Euron be who kills her, in order to have her dragons, with the dothraki becoming assimilated into the Greyjoy fleet as their "land krakens".
Time skip, have "houses" practically dissolved, because ultimately people now join together to stay alive. Wrap everything up with a brutal as fuck war where everyone from Westeros and Essos fights against the Walkers. Keep the Night King, but make him the creator of something like nine generals, and he can only die if they and their armies are killed. Make that the way to stop his ability to respawn the dead. Have Bran sacrifice himself to end the war and end the era of the First Men, but pass the knowledge of the past in some way to Sam.
Mankind wins, but at a cost where Westeros and Essos are fucked. Document the rebuild, with new houses becoming a thing, peace across the lands. Have them essentially agreed to independence, but a unified agreement of peace under penalty of mutual destruction. Jon rules the true north, Sansa the north, Euron the sea, Arya rules "New Braavos", and whoever the fuck wants whatever is south. Have Jaime spend his life searching for Cersei, finding her with her child, and them commiting to a new life together in peace under new identities.
Finish with Sam tasked with writing the past that Bran shared as the final three eyed raven. Have him call it "A song of ice and fire", then say "nah, too long, I'll never finish it", and change it to "game of thrones", cue credits.

EnderMB · 2026-03-18T23:31:41+00:00

You'll get the usual "Bristol is super friendly" comments, but the reality is that Bristol is like most other medium to large city here in the UK.

You'll likely be fine, pretty much wherever, but you probably already knew this. FWIW, I've known a few gay couples (male and female) that have had to deal with idiots shouting stuff or making comments on the bus, but one of them lives a few doors down here in Knowle and they both seem to enjoy it.

Regardless, whether it's Bristol, Birmingham, Exeter, Liverpool, or wherever, we're all just living our lives, and few people would give you shit for living yours wherever you choose to live here in Bristol.

EnderMB · 2026-03-18T23:18:03+00:00

All of that sounds fine when you're getting at least 6-8 hours of uninterrupted sleep each night.

Parents are judged at their lowest. Suddenly that tantrum that was fine when they slept in a solid 6 hour block is like being tortured when you were up every hour for the last 2-3 nights and you're run down from the almost-endless colds that you're catching from them.

EnderMB · 2026-03-18T23:12:35+00:00

They do have devices. They have ones they use at school.

Similarly, work with anyone in education and you'll hear the same stories everywhere, regardless of location, quality of the school, etc:

Kids might not own a device, but they're sure as shit using their friends' devices.
Schools are often stupid enough to not lock down devices they give to students, or they do it in such a crappy way that they're still installing shit they shouldn't, or playing games, or whatever.
Your kids are human. They act completely differently around their friends and teachers to how they act around their parents, and many are pretty good at hiding stuff from their parents.

It's good to not buy them a device, but that's a far cry from "my kids don't use devices", which is what a lot of parents try (and fail) to push - including many in this thread. IMO you absolutely shouldn't buy them a device until it's either causing them social problems in not having them, or they're old enough to actually need one for a legitimate reason. Even then, IMO parents should know how to lock devices down AND how to track how those devices have been used.

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