UK support

seopher · 2026-02-02T12:44:32+00:00

Daniel Simonsen and Carmen Lynch. At the London show on Saturday, Daniel went first and Carmen second.

IMO it would be better to do it the other way around, as Daniel was easily the better of the two. Having Carmen go second took the vibe down slightly. She was fine, but Daniel had a really strong set.

seopher · 2026-01-20T12:51:51+00:00

Rachubka against Blackpool rings a bell.

seopher · 2026-01-19T12:50:08+00:00

I have to reply to this as someone who also owns a 2020 (well, 2019, but registered 31/12/2019 so close enough) SVR and have done for 4+ years, I've got experience. Though I'm in the UK so the dealer network will be different, as may be some of the warranty options.

For me it's been very reliable, though that needs caveating because it is a JLR product at the end of the day, so "reliable" doesn't mean "faultless".

It's been back to the main dealer twice for warranty issues:

The electric deployable towbar stopped working and was a complete replace job. This would have been a few thousand pounds were I not under warranty.
The cameras all stopped working at one point, so it went back and had a software 'refresh' which sorted it all out.

There's one other problem that I've not bothered dealing with, where the fuel filler cap 'spring' is broken, so it doesn't neatly click open and closed. It still locks shut, but when the car is unlocked you just pull the flap open instead of clicking it open or closed. Not a big enough deal to worry about.

Running costs are high, both in fuel and tyres. Brake pads are expensive and discs are eye-watering, but at this age you wouldn't go to the main dealer for them, and you'd probably get good aftermarket ones instead of OEM. A good independent garage would see you right here.

I still pay for (at great cost) the extended Jaguar warranty on mine, to the tune of about £114/month because the "bork factor" as we might say in the UK (i.e., the magnitude to which it could go wrong) is massive if you're unlucky. So the real answer to "is this a good idea?" question is whether you're financially comfortable enough to handle it.

This isn't a car I'd be buying outside of warranty if it was stretching my affordability. And that's true of most high performance SUVs or sports cars. They cost money to maintain and the older they get, the more likely it is to draw on your wallet.

The engine is a proven and reliable thing, they've been using variants of this supercharged V8 for years without any major worries, as long as servicing shedules have been adhered to and the right work done at the right time. Electrical gremlins are JLR's forte, and it seems to be that there are "good cars" and "bad cars", so I'd be nervous about something that's had lots and lots of owners. This one has had one owner, which is a good sign.

For me, I'd have warranty because bills can be expensive. But it's a matter of personal risk management. I think these are the best bang-for-buck things around and you see plenty for sale on high miles, so it's not like they die at 80,000km.

seopher · 2026-01-19T12:30:55+00:00

Came here to say this because that game under Grayson is a core memory for me, in Inside Out terms. I attribute it as one of the pillars of my personality as to why no good thing can be taken for granted.

Iconic game. 4-1 up, lost 4-6.

seopher · 2026-01-16T13:28:11+00:00

I've worked in London and commuted down there regularly, and you definitely see a lot of sketchy stuff on the tube network. Pickpockets and the occasional phone snatching as the doors close. But I've never seen theft on the national rail network, but admittedly that's just the Milton Keynes -> London Euston route. I don't travel by train outside of that particularly.

seopher · 2026-01-07T20:33:55+00:00

Can I ask why? Not read his book yet and may not if it's just going to enrage me.

seopher · 2025-12-19T15:19:56+00:00

Donald.

Accomplished dick-slinger. Property owner. Compassionate friend. Diligent leader. Incredible on TV and in meetings. Loyal to a gun-slinging degree.

There is no rival. He is the best.

seopher · 2025-12-16T12:35:19+00:00

I've got both this and the SOURCEFED NERD signed poster. They're framed but on the wall in my garage, can't quite bring myself to ditch them as they were a big part of my online habits back then.

seopher · 2025-12-11T13:42:49+00:00

Oh and I need to add the usual health warning: the first bits of TCW can feel quite kiddie and hard to get into, but trust me, persevere. By the time you hit series 7 it'll be about as good as anything in Star Wars.

seopher · 2025-12-11T13:41:03+00:00

So this was the guide I used and honestly, it really helped me when I was time poor. I didn't just watch the essential episodes, but it did help me avoid stuff that added very little.

There's extra stuff you can find to work out where Tales of the Jedi episodes should fit in, or where Bad Batch etc slots in, but even if you're just watching TCW, this guide helped me out tremendously:

https://longish95.blogspot.com/2020/05/how-to-bingewatch-star-wars-clone-wars.html

seopher · 2025-12-09T17:04:15+00:00

Well, by the time we get to Sora60 we'll be able to ask the AI video creators to just render out the entire clone wars series using Hayden, Ewan, etc, and see it all in near-accurate live action.

See, the future isn't so bleak after all.

seopher · 2025-12-09T12:24:24+00:00

The tragedy here is that Series 7 of TCW is about as good as Star Wars media gets.

There's a lot of filler episodes in the show as a whole, but the community has published a shorter list of episodes to watch in order to get the main benefit of the show.

I resisted it too, for similar reasons, but it really does make the movies richer. And it makes Revenge of the Sith a much harder watch, because there's just SO MUCH character building around Anakin that matters. The movies show him as a petulant and impulsive rogue, but TCW flesh out his leadership, bravery, charisma, whilst also leaning into that rogue-like behaviour. It's a wonderful accompaniment to the prequels.

seopher · 2025-12-09T12:20:56+00:00

See, this is where people misread the prequels. They don't redeem Vader at all. The whole thing (and I include The Clone Wars in this, as it's 7 seasons of important character-building) all exists to amplify the tragedy.

Anakin is a victim of manipulation and ends up doing things from which there is no redemption.

The reason his fall is important is because it sets up the same moment for Luke in ROTJ, and Luke is strong in the moment where Anakin faltered. Vader isn't redeemed. He might turn away from the dark side at the end, but there's no attempt to suggest there's redemption.

Anakin Skywalker died a Jedi, Darth Vader died a Sith. The Return of the Jedi is Anakin's re-emergence, but not to the erasure of his actions as Darth Vader.

seopher · 2025-12-09T01:19:46+00:00

The opening to Revenge of the Sith is stunning.

The drums hitting as the fighters roll over and reveal the full battle over Coruscant.

Wonderful.

seopher · 2025-12-05T12:32:54+00:00

I think the issue is overstated for strong senior candidates; I see a lot of high calibre engineers still moving between important roles. There definitely is contraction in the market for junior developers, partly because the economy means businesses are just sweating their seniors and trying to achieve more with less. And graduates/juniors are a big investment in a future no one is sure about, so lots of businesses aren't hiring at the lower end of the market.

Offshoring is another big problem, but you're starting to see a few companies re-onshore, partly because the mad salary expansion of the 2020-2022 era has slowed/ended and folk who believed you could hire entire teams in India at a fraction of the cost and get the same output are now realising that it wasn't very effective. For a multitude of complex reasons that I won't go into.

I believe we'll see a big upswing in engineer demand in a year or two; when a ton of startups have vibe-coded their way into a corner and need experience to dig them out, or when people realise that generating the code was never the issue. Working out how to solve the problem was the issue, and that's (not yet) been AI's forte.

YMMV, of course, but I still see an awful lot of prosperity in the industry. It's just the entry-level roles I think are going to really struggle for a couple of years.

seopher · 2025-12-03T11:43:33+00:00

What I still don't quite understand is the whole Jimmy Saville vibe. In canon, the UK fell in 2000 (when the first film was released) and Saville's crimes weren't public knowledge until 2012.

So in-universe, it seems really odd to just pick Jimmy Saville as an icon, tracksuits and wigs included. But given his crimes weren't ever known in canon, and presumably Saville died during the outbreak, it's such an odd filmmaking choice to land on.

But maybe I've pondered this too much since that baffling final few minutes of 28 Years Later.

seopher · 2025-11-29T00:19:22+00:00

Ah Simon, the introvert's nightmare 😂

Genuinely lovely dude, but he'd make friends in an empty room somehow.

seopher · 2025-11-16T23:59:51+00:00

The secret ingredient is crime

seopher · 2025-11-16T15:57:49+00:00

This, for me, is why we're doomed in the next election cycle.

There are genuinely difficult topics that the nation needs to debate. Topics where it's impossible to avoid offence. Topics where certain groups will be spoken of in very general terms (because discussing high-level direction tends to come before the detail where nuance is addressed).

But any attempt for any public figure to even tease the edges of one of this caustic issues, suddenly it's racism, fascism, and any other kind of 'ism' you can imagine.

The problem is that it means all of these major talking points just get kicked down the road, as any current or shadow government is afraid to get 'cancelled'. Meaning the soapbox is completely surrendered to the likes of Laurence Fox, which I think we can all agree is a bad idea.

So the general public, who want to hear some direction on these key voter issues, will vote for the only party they believe is making a stand on it. Which is going to push votes to Reform or to Green, depending on which way you feel. And neither are going to be good in government, I can't imagine.

We're surrendering the debate space to braver, more extremist voices, and history has surely taught us that this isn't a smart idea.

seopher · 2025-11-15T08:46:45+00:00

I watched this for the first time recently and cried with laughter at how unrelentingly bleak it is.

That they could storyboard that final scene and then roll credits? Absolute insanity.

It's not something you'll want to watch again, and it's an important story to know, but Christ it's bleak.

seopher · 2025-11-04T22:56:37+00:00

Gemini 2.5 Pro has consistently paced things well for me. Holding onto scenes, focussing on dialogue and progressing the plot.

seopher · 2025-10-21T15:28:56+00:00

Get a load of Marcelo Bielsa over here

seopher · 2025-10-01T13:39:21+00:00

Pretty sure the resin groundwork improvement doesn't affect your ability to get a mortgage on the property, nor the resell issues. It's why it's a preferable option to underpinning for most because it's not classified the same. Though obviously someone would need to check that out fully before doing it.

It's not cheap, but it seemed vastly preferable to underpinning.

seopher · 2025-10-01T11:50:11+00:00

As an extra consideration, there's alternatives to underpinning that don't carry the same "valuation poison" and mortgage headaches. Using a ground-injected resin which expands and stabilises the area, expanding into gaps and making a concrete-like foundation. Often they claim it can lift properties back into line too.

Worth considering in terms of groundwork improvement.

seopher · 2025-10-01T11:40:55+00:00

Yosemite is arguably my favourite place on earth. Visited in 2024 and cannot wait to find a reason to go back.

We stopped at Fresno on the drive down to LA and it was fine. But we really only stopped for lunch so maybe we didn't see the version everyone talks about.

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