Thundery wintry showers
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Blog Comments posted by Thundery wintry showers
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If it wasn't for Ronnie O'Sullivan's depression-related problems, repeated "will it or won't it" stories re. retirement etc, he would be vying with Judd Trump for my number two spot, but the latest interviews that he's had have reminded me of why I only placed him 5th on the list.
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I'm impressed with your ability- I have to admit that I consider it a success if I can string more than two pots together! My main problem is cueing across the cue ball.
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There are certainly significant similarities between the two Marches, including the possibility of a warm-up in the last week. I don't think there's much in pattern matching at that sort of range, but the similarities with 2006 and lack of similarity with 2007-2012 at least provides some grounds for optimism! -
I think the smoking ban was a positive step overall, but that we could have eliminated many of its downsides simply by allowing pubs, bars etc. to apply to have segregated smoking areas. This would have enabled "social smokers" to have a selection of outlets without having to go outdoors, and it would have protected some of the more marginal pubs/bars against being forced to close due to reduced income from the sort of people who would pop in and have a few cigars.
Indeed, the only arguments that I've heard in opposition to the above proposal are:[list]
[*]"I don't smoke so I'm alright Jack",
[*]"the total smoking ban is a positive step overall so therefore there is no need to improve on it",
[*]"smoke might drift into the non-smoking areas",
[*]"laws in some other countries don't allow them, so we shouldn't either, for the law is the law".
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I'm sure that small amounts of smoke would diffuse into the non-smoking areas, but then again, that happens under the current legislation (smoke coming in through the front door from people smoking outside). Also, non-smokers often have to walk through a lot of smoke in order to get to the pub entrance.
They are picking on drinkers, but they have a habit of punishing the wrong people and saying, "the minority have to spoil it for everybody else". For example, Labour's ID measures have resulted in me being unable to enter most city-centre pubs unless I have my passport on me, despite being aged 28 and a very moderate drinker. -
I spent three years at Lancaster and I certainly recall a strong association between Atlantic flows and generally cloudy wet conditions there-. Slack, showery cyclonic conditions often gave a fair amount of sunshine and not many showers (Morecambe Bay tended to nullify convection, similar to the North Sea re. Tyneside, so Lancaster isn't great for convection/thunderstorm lovers either) but anything involving lots of fronts piling in off the Atlantic almost invariably gave frequent dull, wet and windy weather.
The general rule of thumb for anticyclonic weather was that anticyclonic/westerly types tended to be grey and drizzly (due to the moist tropical maritime air streaming in off Morecambe Bay) whereas high pressure combined with northerlies, easterlies or southerlies usually gave plenty of sunshine.
As a result I detected a stronger positive association between settled weather and sunshine in Lancaster than in Tyneside, although I identified two exceptions above. I would be even less keen on the "strong Azores High ridging into the south" scenario if I was still living over there as it tended to bring frequent grey drizzly weather to the Lancaster area. -
Definitely think Roberto di Matteo deserves a crack at the job for next season- I thought he was quite unfortunate at West Brom with a dodgy run of results and Roy Hodgson conveniently being available to replace him, and it's possible that his management style might work better with higher quality players.
I don't think Chelsea have been that amazing in the Premier League recently but they've certainly improved since the sacking of Andre Villas Boas. However the tactics against Barcelona proved to be absolutely spot on! -
Thinking about it, my main problem with this proposal would be the increased emphasis on "penalisation by result" (which I identified as a problem this season). We could get a driver in a 60-40 incident who sends the other into retirement and gets a heavy penalty, and a driver in a reckless 100-0 incident who gets lucky in the sense that the other driver just loses the one place.
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I find JACKONE's proposal very interesting, though I'm not sure what happens if Driver B retires, as with a couple of Hamilton's incidents at Monaco. If a solution was found for that, then it would probably be a better system than we have now, though as you say, rather controversial. The "if Driver A takes 3rd from Driver B then Driver A ordered to relinquish place" is reminiscent of what happens when someone overtakes by cutting a chicane, though of course we've seen huge controversies over that, e.g. when teams ask if a move is OK, they are told "yes" and then the stewards issue a penalty for it, as in Spa 2008.
One problem with the near zero-tolerance policy with drive-throughs is that consistency does indeed suffer, when stewards are mindful of the fact that a penalty could interfere with the race result. For instance, Michael Schumacher got a couple of warnings after blocking Lewis Hamilton, and while I agreed with the decision, I noted that Lewis Hamilton got a time penalty for the same thing earlier in the season. Similarly, Jenson Button's clash with Fernando Alonso in Canada got no penalty, but there have been similar "60-40" type incidents that did result in a penalty, such as Hamilton-Maldonado in Monaco.
I think it's good to see the rules clarified on one hand, but on the other, I can't help but notice that every clarification is either a tightening of the rules or no significant change. I think that's one major reason why I came up with the "totting up" procedure, as I think progressively tightening rules are best matched with a relaxation of the level of punishment for the smaller offences (especially in a sport where human beings have to make split-second decisions under pressure)- or else the trend towards drive-throughs being given for the slightest thing will continue. To me, it becomes a problem when penalties increasingly overshadow the actual race. -
Indeed, that last paragraph was an issue when I decided whether or not to use the Doom 3 expansion pack (Resurrection of Evil) for my Doom 3 mod, and I decided against it because not enough people owned it.
I find that the three developers I quoted above (Valve, Bethesda, id Software) are among the few who still release mod tools with most of their games (e.g. The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim already has dozens of mods out and it's only been out for 12 days) and Steamworks DRM is designed to facilitate such modding, though it largely prevents modding that relies upon modifying game executables which makes it more of an issue on some third party titles. -
I hope I didn't give you the wrong impression with some of my posts in MOD- I, for one, think that your recent contributions in there have actually been very good.
What gets up my backside in there is lack of objectivity and the masses using it as a thread to discuss prospects for just one type of weather- essentially the same problems as we get during the winter. For instance, many people will see a "cloudy/dirty" high and just assume that it'll be hot and sunny (in the same way that they'd see a dry cloudy south-easterly in winter and assume it would bring lots of snow), but you don't, and I appreciate that.
I share your views on preferred summer weather far more closely than you might think from reading my posts in there. My favourite summer month to date was July 2006 in Leeds, where it was pretty much as per your description. Indeed, to get my "ideal" summer, all you'd have to do is take yours and add a few extra showery thundery "low 20s maxes" incursions, there's not a lot of difference. Next week will probably highlight the downside of "average temperatures" in Tyneside for instance- it feels comfortably warm when it's sunny with hardly any wind but I think with just 18-19C on the cards, a cold wind off the North Sea will scupper any outdoor activities next week! -
A promising start to the series- I thought the first episode started weakly but then got good later, and I enjoyed the second episode throughout.
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Agreed- great to see a group campaigning against government measures out of consideration for the wider social implications! -
Finally getting better after a week of feeling ill due to that chest infection!
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[quote]a cold virus [b]turning to bronchitis[/b][/quote]
It's somewhat fitting that you mention that- this had never happened to me before as far as I can remember, but today, I've been confirmed by the doctor as having a marked chest infection. My asthma is pretty mild so just mild treatment is normally enough to keep me above 85% of peak flow at all times, barring a heavy cold which might bring it down to 80% on occasion. But this morning it fell as low as 60%- so chest infections can cause symptoms to spiral even in mild cases. -
My opinion has always been that Ian's "modern winter" theory has had some truth behind it- Northern Hemisphere temperatures have definitely risen (albeit only by about 0.5C since the 60s/70s so far) and there is evidence to suggest that a warmer world would promote a stronger and more northerly tracking jetstream. But on the other hand, there's also some evidence suggesting that the synoptic trends since 1988 were, at least in part, caused by natural variability and liable to flip back towards a colder winter regime for NW Europe. The problem has always been the overly "black and white" perspective on the "modern winter".
This winter has shown that global warming is a long way off preventing us from having cold snowy winters. A winter like 1947 or 1963, with 0.5C added to the temperatures, would still be very cold, and snow amounts would most likely only be slightly less. Given this 0.5C differential it's probable that this winter has, synoptically, been as cold in Scotland as 1962/63.
To be absolutely fair to Ian Brown, though, he did admit defeat in the thread dedicated to his winter forecast. -
Just seen your comment.
I've often ranted about the quality of modern-day BBC forecasts, but Countryfile forecast, in my opinion, remain every bit as good as they were in the 1990s- if anything they may even have improved slightly. The forecast had the right amount of detail and clarity and to my mind presented the main snow areas pretty well. As always with this kind of setup they'll have got some of the specifics wrong but I think the general progression was near the mark. -
Just managed it- unfortunately it was all icy by Christmas Day, but it still looked festive and picturesque and covered 80-90% of the ground, so it counted.
And there's still enough for a "snow day" today! -
Still looking favourable after some worrying moments from the GFS last night.
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Happy birthday indeed!
I have to say I'm not a fan of cliches like "what don't kill you makes you stronger". It does reflect the fact that you can nearly always take positives out of a negative experience.
But those kind of phrases can be used as another excuse to say "that's life" regarding problems that can potentially be addressed. I had plenty of experiences at school and 1st year university being given a hard time by peers, and the relevant authorities being unwilling to do anything about it because "it will make you stronger". I'm not convinced that those experiences, as a whole, have made me stronger. Some of them have, some of them have not. In many ways it reminds me of the way the phrase "everything happens for a reason" is used.
Hope the situation with the flatmates gets better in any case. -
I was reminded of this discussion by the recent Man Utd-Liverpool game- from the other side. Carragher committed what, to me, looked like an obvious professional foul on a Man Utd player, but it was debatable whether he denied an obvious goalscoring opportunity- which I guess is why he only got a yellow card for it. (I must say, though, that I thought Liverpool thoroughly deserved the win).
But especially after the above discussion I can appreciate how hard it is for the referee to make such a distinction. I am coming around to the view that it's difficult to see a way around the "fairness vs making it a nightmare for referees" issue other than to replace DOGSO with something easier to differentiate- but then the question, "what?" arises, and while I'm hopeful that there [i]might[/i] be a way if the governing body put their minds to it, it's a real head-scratcher.
What I can say in favour of the current rule, though, is that IMHO it is a much better way of making the distinction than the "last man rule". -
Firstly, thanks for taking the time and effort to come back with such a detailed explanatory reply, especially re. the clarification of what the rule is (and isn't!) really about.
Regarding "intention", I tend not to argue from that angle. I think in terms of elsewhere on the pitch, where one key factor in the likelihood of a player getting carded (yellow or red) for a foul is whether or not the player made much of an effort to get the ball (and I think the referees tend to get this call right most of the time). It strikes me that the rule could easily be modified to take into account whether or not much of an effort was made to play the ball- which would be a good approximation to whether it was deliberate or not, and much easier for the referee to distinguish.
After having read the above, I am still of the view that a straight red is a disproportionate punishment for a defender who makes a genuine effort to get the ball, just because the player is through on goal- especially considering the magnitude of tackles that go on elsewhere and only get a yellow. It is still analogous, in my view, to making denying an Obvious Overtaking Opportunity in Formula One an automatic disqualification offence plus a ban for at least the next race, irrespective of whether it was a "professional foul" like Schumacher turning in on Villeneuve in Jerez 1997.
My proposed modification would still risk increasing the amount of inconsistency, due to the ref having to make two judgement calls instead of one, but it would also reduce the extent of the resulting injustices. A mistake by the ref would be the difference between a foul and a foul plus sending off, or a foul or nothing, as opposed to the difference between a foul plus sending off or nothing. -
One thing is for certain, I won't be buying either until I see a good cross-section of reviews for both games for the PC. I am hopeful that PES 2010 will be an improvement on the previous three incarnations, but if it isn't, there will be no point in getting it given that I already have Pro Evo 6.
Regarding FIFA I think the main thing that puts me off it is the lack of a good edit mode (creating custom teams). I think if FIFA 10 had an edit mode that was anywhere near as good as PES's, then I'd be going for FIFA, even given the likelihood of the PC port being poor. It's odd, because the early incarnations of FIFA that I previously had (2000, 2001) had decent edit modes. -
I think the best answer is a combination of both. Ken Livingstone's plan of phasing traffic lights to cause maximum disruption can't be helping matters, but nor can the sheer volume of traffic.
Unfortunately the prevailing view among policymakers seems to be that draconian measures to deter car use are the only way. -
Aye, I think you're probably right there.
With regards the test system it seems people generally learn how to drive in order to pass the test. In the meantime many people who are learning to drive feel they know better than established drivers (usually because the latter have got into "bad habits", meaning anything that deviates from how you're taught to drive in order to pass the test). Once they pass, many feel under-prepared for life on the roads, and also many feel that the rules on driving style are too stringent and some rebel by going free-for-all (this might contribute to the numbers of reckless 18 year olds). As a non-driver my knowledge of how the system works has some limitations, but these observations of its effects crop up quite consistently.
My impression is that there's too much focus on testing driving style rather than aptitude. I remember reading a few articles suggesting more emphasis on training rather than error based testing which might be worth looking at, although I admit to not being knowledgeable enough on that to justify forming a strong view.
Svalbard - the first days
in Svalbard
A blog by Mark Bayley in Archive
Posted
I've been keeping a close eye on Longyearbyen's monthly temperatures recently- the weather station there often reports large positive anomalies (relative to 1961-1990) during the winter half-year, the largest being 14.5C in February 2014 (the mean temperature was -1.7 compared with the 61-90 average of -16.2). The temperatures there are very sensitive to the reduced Arctic sea ice extent. Recently it's mostly been two or three degrees above. Of course you'll nonetheless get plenty of snow there this winter.