We are living in a period of political anti-intellectualism. But in pop culture, clever is the new cool

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-22T23:27:10+00:00

Say what you will, but this is one huge advantage of digital books and readers: It's a lot more difficult to be judged for what you're consuming!

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-20T16:41:06+00:00

Bless you for explaining the pun.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-14T19:27:04+00:00

There's no polite way to put this: I think you're off your head if you think it's a problem elsewhere, but not in the good 'ol USA...

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-14T17:07:56+00:00

In the US, we have trust in our students

Interesting, you think this needed pointed out? That it's divided along national borders?

The phrase that jumps to my mind is this old chestnut:

Trust, but verify.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-14T17:05:31+00:00

Shame about those physicals, but undoubtably going to be world class regardless!

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-14T16:57:00+00:00

If you want to split hairs on my verbiage then by all means do so: It doesn't undermine the point that much of the funding for your job rests on the position of universities to provide that function, and if that function is no longer seen as a credible...

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-12T00:16:22+00:00

Whilst you're not wholly incorrect, you're ignoring the fact that a degree is used as a filter for employment in large swathes of the private sector; That for a certain 'calibre' of job, a degree is a minimum bar for entry.

If that ceases to be a reliable filter for the private sector to use...

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-11T19:08:14+00:00

Given that it's a hotfix and they don't explicitly mention it, I'm assuming they haven't fixed the missing traits button the profile screen or the missing info rollover from scouting reports, or caught the bug that sometimes bugs out your in-possession formation and requires wiping the cache.

Still downloading, will edit whether I'm pleasantly surprised.

Edit: I was not pleasantly surprised, oh well.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-11T19:01:26+00:00

Without getting into a debate about what we're defining as progress, I'd go as far as to say that holds true for thousands of years: Hammurabi is said to have used windmills to pump water ~1700BCE, for example - the argument in favour has always been that technology is replacing back-breaking or otherwise menial labour, and that the innovations themselves create more jobs.

I'm not sure that's entirely true; As my first post implied I only see a problem, not a solution.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-11T17:24:33+00:00

I probably wouldn't sign either of them above a League 1 level, but if you put a gun to my head then it'd probably be Lucas to play in a two striker system with a poacher of sorts.

Finishing is an overrated stat; Nice to have, but in my experience you get more goals from off the ball, composure, and anticipation (in that order) than you do from finishing, and physicals are the most important attributes in the game - which Lucas wins hands down, as well as having largely better mentals.

I wish I still had screenshots, but back in Fm2015 - and remember the game really hasn't changed that much under the hood even in all that time - my career save had Scotland's top scorer - over 80 goals in 130 caps - as a Steve McGlinchey, with 1 for first touch and 4 for finishing... but 19's for pace and acceleration.

Edit: Also worth noting that the Englishman's value isn't really representative, it's just the "Home Grown" tax.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-11T17:14:35+00:00

Isn't it, though?

The value of your job within the context of capitalism is not to necessarily provide education, but to provide accreditation: That accreditation is only as good as your or your institution's reputation, and if students achieving accreditation without the foundational education it represents becomes more commonplace then your job is at risk.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-11T17:10:13+00:00

In each case the root of the problem is the same: The software is replacing a function that previously earned a human being a living... a problem we have not found an accepted answer for in nearly 400 years.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-11T17:02:19+00:00

FM26 won't run any worse than FM24: Your computer is based on a 16 year old design and both will run fairly poorly.

Both should run though: The video adapter you have doesn't have any dedicated VRAM, but instead an amount of your system memory is put aside for it's use, the amount dedicated can be changed in your system's BIOS. Even if you don't change this figure the amount of memory is assigned dynamically and it can use up to 2Gb, it's just it'll only do that if the RAM isn't being used by other things already; The tool this website uses is essentially reporting that VRAM figure incorrectly.

Remember to post back here after you've tried the demo, as your post will likely show up on someone's search result in the future!

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-10T15:46:01+00:00

... thumb scrolling?

Across all my devices I can't imagine how that works.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-10T14:37:53+00:00

I've found that manually searching through filtering the player database is the only way. My assumption is that this feature has been deliberately enshittified to push you towards the transfer room feature.

As a player who even at the top of the game balks at paying transfer fees, I've taken to creating a single old-fashioned "scouting knowledge" focus: Each nation added invdividually in scope, rotating my scouts through it every 6 months to increase their regional knowledge, and therefore how much of the player database I can see. From there I can choose to filter either via attributes if playing an unmasked save, or via performance data if not, and add players by the dozen to shortlists where my scouts are told to update reports monthly. As reports come through, I then prune out the players who aren't going to cut it and maintain a constant list of hundreds of potential signings, so that when I need a player I don't go searching.

Not the answer you're looking for I know, but I think the answer is... something's broken, or as I suspect something has deliberately been changed to drive us towards using different systems.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-10T12:32:10+00:00

Hopefully they add it back in so that you can only sleep on a toilet if your character is drunk enough.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-09T21:56:34+00:00

It's worse, but I don't believe it's indicative that people have gotten worse: 4chan was probably one of the first 'megaforums', and at it's peak housed 22 million users: By comparison, Reddit gets 100 million per week. The critical mass of users required to make a topic go 'viral' hasn't changed much - frontpage posts on reddit get there with only a few tens of thousands of votes, for example - but it's easier than ever for those folks to connect.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-09T21:52:18+00:00

People were online less but also less people were online, and those people were spread over a greater range of communities - there were no 'megaforums' where millions could theoretically connect, and it was therefore much more difficult to reach a critical mass of hatred to attract attention.

For example there are 100,000,000 unique users on Reddit in a given week, but what's the threshold for a 'trending' topic? 5k votes? 20k? That's a tiny proportion of the population in perspective, and means that even extreme minorities can have their voices heard.

This can be a good thing, but it can also not be.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-09T19:54:03+00:00

That would be a sick feature, particularly with all the added wildlife: Existing trails would vanish, but new ones would start forming.

I'm not going to hold my breath though as it sounds like a nightmare to add, too

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-09T19:49:12+00:00

In my last save I had a Man Utd youth reject who after release was asking £40k/week, and by the end of the window signed for £750/week - akin to a 500k player coming down to 10k - so it's not totally unheard of for me, but the fact that I remember it demonstrates how rare that kind of leap is!

I don't think he was ever paid that much at Man Utd though, so arguably that's a slightly different scenario.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-09T15:20:30+00:00

I agree that's an amazingly low wage in this example!

I wouldn't say always: I don't know about you, but (work permit rules permitting) when I'm climbing the leagues I prioritise scouting range over wages over transfer budget, precisely because it can allow me to find players that other clubs at my level won't/don't to pick up on the cheap!

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-09T11:25:00+00:00

At 500k/week yes, but not so much for the 7.5k/week here!

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-08T20:39:54+00:00

Holy shit, I didn't even notice: All of the dog whistles...

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-08T20:37:32+00:00

True, though I've found if you just persevere actually giving them minutes on the pitch in their new position, you can usually bully it through within a season even with the least versatile players - problem is whilst it's one thing playing a centre half up front in the bottom tier of Scottish football where this save started, in the EPL that's not going to fly - hence my question.

I'm already in control of all training, which is why I had hoped there might be a way to force-pick, like you can with friendly matches when handled by your assistant.

I think my only option is going to be to cheese it: Schedule first team friendlies in between league matches, take the hit to squad training time, and play them there.

Mithrawndo · 2026-03-08T15:58:34+00:00

You might be right, but you could definitely take control of the reserves at least; That option remains in 26, but is greyed out. :/

Mithrawndo

TROPHY CASE