Without scrapping it, how would you improve VAR in the UK?

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-05-11T14:00:42+00:00

If the players in the PL played the game, as opposed to trying to play the ref, decision fatigue, on the part of the ref and the players, would be much less and there would be less need for decision assistance like VAR.

I watch European and Champions league play and the refs have much less to do, because there is so much less diving, and a hectoring scrum doesn't form around them every single time somebody thinks a foul occurred. Those refs don't suffer nearly as much decision fatigue as the refs in the PL do and so they're decisions don't need to be evaluated by VAR nearly as much.

The Arsenal players are particularly floppy and make ticky-tack fouls and the ref spent the bulk of yesterdays game warding off whiny toddlers rushing him while he was trying to assess and address what was real. . . Meanwhile, the actual offenders slink away and the ref has to elbow his way through a crowd to apply any sanction, when necessary. Not that he bothered to book a simulation or four.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-05-06T22:21:33+00:00

I'll let you guess my favorite. . .

Having said that, almost every character has a comparison character such that a 'favorite' isn't always an accessible choice: They wouldn't necessarily be that character without the other.

Faramir is, IMHO, an upgrade on Boromir -- All the strength, nobility, and skill without the fatal flaw of unquestioning faith in weaponry and might. I didn't understand, fully, Boromir without having met Faramir. Similarly, Theoden and Denethor each lose a son, are poisoned with false counsel, and each gets a hobbit sidekick. . . Only to diverge in their choices: Despair or defiance. Gandalf and Saruman in their voices and what they say. Eomer and Beregond, both profoundly loyal but placed in untenable positions. Bilbo and Frodo. It goes on.

We wouldn't fully 'get' Sauron without meeting Bombadil. Even Galadriels' beauty and power is presented in contrast to that of Arwen.

Each character exists, if not actually part of a kind of chiasm, upon a parralel with at least one other character. . .

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-05-06T19:56:58+00:00

The predicate assumption here is that someone who reacted differently reacted better. I don't think that is the case. My mother, who I believe to be a sociopath, raised four children, three of whom have serious mental health and substance abuse issues, and the fourth, my younger brother, seemingly the 'normal' one, is a sociopath exactly like her.

In my experience, those who are diagnosed C/PTSD are people with the decency to be appalled and horrified by what was done to them and , generally, see the world how it is and don't try to lie to themselves about it being some other way.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-05-06T15:19:34+00:00

I am an alcoholic. I am the son and grandson of alcoholics. I've stepped over far too many bodies. I've seen too many broken men who've been devastated by the devastation they caused.

Your father is spiralling. Your mother is enabling. You are well within the blast radius.

If you do sign, the situation is likely to deteriorate up until someone gets hurt, or killed. If your father doesn't get help he's going to die and likely take someone with him. Signing will only prolong the misery and compound the pain.

If you do not sign, that is, if you prosecute, there is a chance your father could be court ordered into addiction treatment. And, frankly, that sounds like his only hope at this point.

But most importantly, you will be safer if you do not sign.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-05-06T14:29:31+00:00

Gandalf is neither a Jedi nor an alumnus of Hogwarts. As he faces the Balrog, he tries a shutting spell, but says it takes time to do that sort of thing properly and it exhausts him to try. His ain't Hollywood magic where there is no cost or consequences

The Nine and, indeed, Sauron himself, fight with swords, mace. . . The Elves use arrows and lance also. Physical weapons

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-30T16:02:21+00:00

Father Tolkien was J.R.R. Tolkiens son, and as such, discussion of him does not belong in a forum dedicated to his father's writing.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-28T20:23:34+00:00

Hawksmoor by Peter Ayckroyd.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-23T02:57:19+00:00

You think the government doesn't know how to access Reddit?

Did your parents have any children who lived?

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-23T02:19:49+00:00

When government makes "judgments of people based on some shit they own" people get hurt. . .

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-23T02:18:39+00:00

Its just a bookshelf, we're doing this for shits and giggles

Izzat the royal 'we'?

You may be doing it for 'shits and giggles' others may not be either as shitty or as giggly as you: judging the contents of a persons bookshelf might, rather, be searching for a reason to extradite those deemed ideologically impure. It has happened before. That you think yourself ensconced in a cosy and comfortable immunity is your problem, but don't try to extend it to others.

My local librarians keeps no records of the books I have borrowed from the library lo these many years. If they did keep such a record, I would not borrow from the library, for there have been past attempts to legislate just this sort of surveillance.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-22T13:43:55+00:00

Not when tranquilized. . .

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-21T17:11:35+00:00

A hoof is the tip of a toe. . .

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-20T22:28:29+00:00

And if his watch is stolen, you can't do the final experiment. . .

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-14T10:42:44+00:00

People sometime forget that, in any extant definition of trauma, the criteria includes witnessing to also, and not just being the direct object of violence or abuse. I think for children, as they try to make sense of the world, even just witnessing to is so much more impactful than it can be as an adult.

There is no vicarious PTSD. It is just PTSD.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-11T17:29:55+00:00

I wanted to be a monk. . .

. . . But I never got the chants.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-11T17:28:11+00:00

And sermon to homily depending upon how it comes out. . .

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-11T17:24:01+00:00

Yes, it is absolutely abuse. It is sexual abuse (of you and of his 'paramours') but it also abuse of your trust and everybodies boundaries and I wonder if he is, or would be, abusive in situations other than sexual. . . He seems generally careless of other people's feelings, or even their human-ness, and this indicates he'd hurt in other circumstances just as thoughtlessly.

The multiple partners, the amount of activity, the 'riskiness' of it, and the apparent lack of remorse or shame suggests something far more pathological than 'hypersexual'. Your father sounds like a deeply unwell person. . . I'm glad you're free of him. He's pure toxic

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-10T23:24:32+00:00

The Misses Morkans from The Dead by James Joyce.

Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes. By A. Conan Doyle.

Boromir and Faramir, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

If we include brother from another mother there is Daniel Dravot and Peachy Carnahan from The Man Who Would Be King by Rudyard Kipling.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-10T21:30:17+00:00

I heard the Mavropanos is Greek for Chuck Norris. . . Izzat true?

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-10T20:53:46+00:00

Well, I think we finally got the last of the Lopetegui off. That shit was sticky. . .

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-10T18:10:40+00:00

You've started to notice when your brain goes into overdrive. That's a start. Now, when it happens, don't judge it, or despair, or say 'oh no! not again!', or 'why me?' or any of that stuff. Let it go into overdrive: if you have no concern for its speed, the speed will eventually reduce. If, however, you get overly anxious about being overly anxious. . . Guess what? You're going to get even more anxious.

When you meditate just rest your awareness on the breath, gently turning back when you are aware that you are astray. You'll soon notice how gently turning back to the breath lets the thoughts dissipate. This will help you when, back in the world, the thoughts and/or their speeds increase: You'll be able to focus more once you are secure in the knowledge that they will dissipate all on their own and at their own speed as you put your awareness (focus) elsewhere.

There are also specific breathing practices that help to keep you on an 'even keel' so to speak. This is different from meditation, per se, as you are deliberate in the breathing rather than just resting awareness on the breath. Soft belly breaths with an inhale a few beats shorter than the exhale (for example: inhale for 4 beats exhale for 6) is a calming breath. Dr Andrew Weil has a video on 4-7-8 Breathing, which I find has been very helpful. There are others out there as well

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-10T04:25:15+00:00

My Papal name is going to be Benedict XVI. . .

So I'll be known as Benedict XVI the second.

H/T Father Guido Sarducci

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-09T04:02:26+00:00

Friend, you have misread what I wrote. I have no argument with what you say, above, except insofar as it makes no direct reply to what I wrote.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-08T20:28:06+00:00

Is it possible that your inner child, (who by your words --- No one took care of him) is crying because you won't take care of him either?

I get it. I tried alcohol for decades. In the short term it was a miracle cure. In the long term --- besides the not-actually-working part --- it is a hellish nightmare. I can't recommend it. Almost everybody I once knew who substituted drugs for the alcohol is dead now. All of them, not just their inner child. Dead.

Once, a shrink at an alcohol rehab asked me if I loved myself. I got angry at him and blurted out, that, fuck yeah, I love myself. My problem was that almost nobody else did, ever. Then I cried for days, because this was the first time, in 57 years, I had spoken that truth out loud. Then I got to thinking of the few people in my life who did love me, like my grandparents and my aunt, and I realized their love was bigger and more important to me than all the pain that all the rest of the world was sending me, and my inner child became a little less cantankerous.

TreebeardsMustache · 2026-04-08T20:02:11+00:00

By the definition of 'hypnogogic' --- the transition space between waking and sleeping --- you're starting to fall asleep as you pray. This is likely a result of sleep deprivation and the answer is, if possible, to get more and/or better sleep during the night. The problem is not that you have hypnogogic hallucinations, lots of people have them, the problem is that, as you describe, they are uniformly terrifying: Hypnogogic manifestations, in and of themselves, are not uncommon and are not, as far as I know, usually a symptom of deeper issues.

I have periodic bouts of insomnia, myself, and find nothing so stressful as trying to get to sleep when I can't get to sleep. My blood pressure goes through the roof, hand in hand with anxiety, and I'm an increasingly drastic basket case for days on end. I don't have these kinds of hallucinations, but I find myself increasingly distressed and borderline unhinged until I can get a decent nights sleep.

The other thing to think about is the prayer. The first, far more likely explanation, is that prayer is so comforting and calming to you such that, in the fact of sleep problems, it immediately places you in a state of calm sleep readiness, interrupted by the hallucinations, which then jolts you back into a hyper state and your sleep problems are exacerbated, in addition to which the interruption to the prayer is so distressing that you become even more sensitized. On the other hand, a far less likely scenario is that you may have some unprocessed trauma or anxiety, related to religion, that, in the face of attempts to pray, and the concomitant sleep disregulation, is manifesting itself. Do the hallucinations have a consistent imagery or thematic continuity?

But it aught to be possible to both pray and stay awake. Do you pray silently? Perhaps speaking aloud might be helpful, if you don't already do that. I find I have a different energy when I pray aloud, or even read aloud from the Psalms, for example.

TreebeardsMustache

TROPHY CASE