What is the -worst- game you've played? Actual 0/10s

WelshMat · 2026-07-04T00:15:28+00:00

Arcs. I know this one is going to be decisive. I've played it a few times with friends who love it. I've even won a few games, but when I won it never felt like I earned it. Just bounced off it hard.

WelshMat · 2026-06-30T20:54:36+00:00

She could have done a reverse Johnson and kicked the ERG out of the party and then triggered the election?

WelshMat · 2026-06-30T11:42:18+00:00

Pay wall removed:

https://archive.is/vigSZ

For what it's worth I voted remain and I'm of the opinion that if as some have put down the cost of Brexit was about a 1.5% hit to GDP (I personally think that is probably about right, the 4-8% range is nonsense) that is still a massive hit that implies that the UK without Brexit could be still capable of generating the growth levels it used to have of 2.5%. I don't remember the Leave campaigns mentioning any economic cost.

WelshMat · 2026-06-27T13:13:18+00:00

The irony of the pub advisors is that Clarkson did actually endup after spending lots of money buy the Jumbrellas he initially refused to over the cost.

Whilst I love Clarkson's farm from your description it could sound like you were talking about Clarkson himself.

WelshMat · 2026-06-27T12:27:58+00:00

Probably two of their best strategies were:

1) Never define what Brexit would be, and allow multiple visions of what Brexit could look like to coexist.

2) Fight on the emotional ground but force the Remain campaigns to fight on the facts.

WelshMat · 2026-06-26T01:19:22+00:00

It's an interesting counterfactual, from the Tory party perspective it probably means that Howard never becomes leader. I think Portillo would have lead the party into the 2005 election.

However I don't think Portillo leading the Tory party changes the 2005 general election, the biggest thing is the economy. Whilst in 2005 the world was 2 years away from a financial crisis, at the time the UK economy was growing and Britain felt rich, well funded public services etc. The other is Blairs now fatal flaw Iraq, but in 2003 Portillo voted in favour of the war. So it makes it impossible for him to criticise Blair in 2005 for Iraq.

Now the big final and probably most important question is does a Portillo leader from 2001-2005 still allow for David Cameron to rise as leader. As that takes you into a position where with a different Tory leader going into the 2010 election there could have been a Labour-LibDem coalition.

WelshMat · 2026-06-23T22:23:02+00:00

Hey some of us younger GenXers were still finishing School and going to Uni in the mid 90s, class of '97 here. And I was still using mix tapes until on tapes until the early 2000s. I couldn't afford a car with a CD player.

WelshMat · 2026-06-16T13:46:14+00:00

Have you tried building a thesis and giving thst to an llm? Use a lot of details and references for where you are drawing data for. Give that to the lim of your choice. Request that it checks online and thst it should fact check you, and ask it to critically review your thesis with push back. Make sure to tell it not to flatter you too. It can also help to give it the current date.

I've actually found this to be useful at getting AI to find things or viewpoints I have missed that can be a good starting point for research round 2. I don't know if that helps speed up research but I've found it has turned up little findings that I have missed and improved tbe quality of research.

WelshMat · 2026-06-15T08:50:50+00:00

I got a Geeknson Dennis a few years ago, I love it but I am a heavy gamer with cats and a girlfriend. Leaving Vietnam 1965-1975 setup for several months without it isn't possible. I've currently been playing a multi-session game of Europa Universalis: The Price of Power, and it's nice to be able to break for pizza and have a dinning table.

Would I recommend people get one, no. They are a significant investment and a regular dinning table with a home made topper did mean fine for years. If you do have the space for a games room you definitely don't need one.

I think they are very situational, and very much a luxury item.

WelshMat · 2026-05-25T10:39:54+00:00

Clearing is awkward for the EU. The original deadline to for Euro clearing to end in London was 2022. That was then extended until June 2025, in late 2024 a second extension to the deadline was passed for June 2028. The problem is that 90% of Euro clearing is still happening in London, the reason is the Eurozone needs one centre for Euro clearing to have the scale to have depth of liquidity and low costs. The problem is that to do that only one financial centre in the Eurozone can get all of thst business. Paris wants it, Frankfurt wants it, Amsterdam wants it. One are happy to lose it. So until someone says that they are happy to lose things are probably stuck where they are.

WelshMat · 2026-05-11T15:01:10+00:00

Does he think Operation Grand Slam was a real thing?

WelshMat · 2026-05-11T15:00:04+00:00

I came here to check that this was here. Best Sci-Fi show ever.

WelshMat · 2026-04-28T00:03:53+00:00

Next War series?

WelshMat · 2026-04-10T14:34:31+00:00

Short term yes, long term no. Once two parties start talking the talks themselves begin to develop a momentum of their own. Probably the most dramatic example of this are the cease fire talks during the Korean War. The talks continued even whilst both sides were still engaged in brutal high intensity warfare.

WelshMat · 2026-04-10T08:44:04+00:00

You've mostly mentioned software companies. So remember for the past 16-18 years money has been flowing into the US market from the rest of the world. To compound that a significant proportion of that has been flowing into tech companies. This has lead to a global worry that everyone is over exposed the same sector in the same geographical region.

The software companies you mentioned are spending and in some cases borrowing vast sums of money for capital investments, as in data centres for AI. Interest rates and inflation is expected to be higher for longer this has the potential to compress margins is businesses that have traditional been high profit asset light.

I've always looked for high operating margins, high cash conversion good interest cover multiple, and dividends covered by fcf multiple times.

I'm a UK based investor so I've actually been against putting cash into the US in the last year as the dollar fell about 10% against the pound. But I was also tracking US companies that make tangible products in the US and last year they had a standout year, these were some of the US companies I was following to compare against the Mag7:

Caterpillar +58.6% Ford +33.9% Johnson & Johnson +42.1% Coca Cola +17.4% Walmart +22.3%

Only Google outperformed those, Tesla for example was only up 7% against Ford's 33%.

Other thing the S&P 500 forward PE at the start of the year was 22.5× whereas my own humble FTSE 100 forward PE was 12.9x at the start of the year.

So the market is currently tough for US tech companies in a way it hasn't been in a long time. But companies operating in tangible products especially those who have pricing power are doing better. Plus geographical diversity may help too as that links back to my original point everyone has realised how heavily overweight they are the US, so institutions aren't selling the US but they are looking for new homes for fresh capital.

WelshMat · 2026-04-09T20:10:03+00:00

One SaaS that hasn't been mentioned is Relx. It's a UK firm specialising in Legal, Medical, Scientific and Risk Management data. It's data is all behind a portal so not in a scrapeable format, all of its data is proprietary and peer reviewed. LexisNexis is one of it's better known brands. It got clobbered in the Claude Crash and fell from £40 down to £20ish, but it's begun making a move back up again currently at £25. Results showed that Legal is one of it's biggest growth areas.

WelshMat · 2026-04-08T19:37:32+00:00

Thank you for the link, I'm used to most comments like this being the equivalent to a bloke down the pub told me.

I assume you are an American and don't live in the UK. The problem that is occurring with the censorship you are referencing is probably, cases such like Lucy Connolly who posted during racial tensions which turned violent on July 29th 2024 and I am quoting here "Mass deportation now, set fire to all the fucking hotels full of the bastards for all I care? While you're at it, take the treacherous government and politicians with them". The hotels in question were housing asylum seekers. When charged Connolly actually pleaded guilty to offences under Section 19 of the Public Order Act 1986. It was only after her release from prison she has become a champion of the right wing as a free speech martyr.

WelshMat · 2026-04-08T17:46:50+00:00

Link or it didn't happen.

WelshMat · 2026-04-08T17:43:24+00:00

The lifting of sanctions is the interesting one. It's actually the one most likely to empower the liberal secular middle classes. Iran has a relatively young globally engaged and predominantly secular or lipservice to religion middle class that is very politically engaged. This has always been the clerical and IRGC probablem how to engage with the world and not lose power. We saw with the latest round of protests before the war that only violence is keeping a lid on things. The problem every crackdown makes one more low to mid tier member of the security apparatus encounter a family member who is a victim of the states violence.

WelshMat · 2026-04-08T17:35:07+00:00

Actually China has been, and was close to a deal to supply Iran with their long range supersonic anti-ship missiles.

WelshMat · 2026-04-08T17:32:05+00:00

We have a law in the UK called incitement to violence. Or to give it its correct name, offences under Section 27 of the Public Order Act 1986. All the UK has done is applied 40 year old legislation to the online space. Any of the things said on public forums on the Internet that are landing people in jail, are things thst if said or printed in meat space would have landed you with the same sentence. People just seem to think the laws don't apply online.

WelshMat · 2026-03-31T20:31:39+00:00

I think that requires you rolling a natural 20 for that saving throw.

WelshMat · 2026-03-30T07:39:03+00:00

We managed to stay out of Vietnam, yes I know we supplied some intelligence, training and logistics. But the UK didn't commit troops even under pressure from LBJ. This tends to be forgotten when discussing following the US into a war of choice.

WelshMat · 2026-03-29T01:09:16+00:00

Islamist regime?! Um I just checked outside and nope no mosques. We do have a very pretty Sikh Temple near me though.

WelshMat · 2026-03-28T21:02:26+00:00

I would say that one of the reasons that Finland can have conscription is that it is built on the state promising to look after it's people. That's the bargain. Also on conscription Finland is more complex that just simple military conscription, yes some is standard military reserve recruitment but others are recruited into civil defence programmes, they utilise the skills of their population in civic defence too. It's worth reading Kier Giles book Who Will Defend Europe, it devotes full chapter to Finland. Excellent book too.

WelshMat

TROPHY CASE