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World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

theguardian.com

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Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#421

Post by dgacmu »

mellosouls wrote: post #343
zarzavat wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much more likely to have died out because of smartphones. The boredom of the pre-smartphone era led to all kinds of ingenuity. Kids were bored so they found ways to not be bored. Nowadays everybody is addicted their phone, simple pleasures such as violently smashing two nuts together no longer have the same pull.

It's much more likely to have died out because of smartphones I know kids have a lot more money these days but I refuse to believe they are swinging two smartphones together instead of conkers.

I would like to introduce you to my six year old.

Mind you, it's much more likely the two phones involved would be mine and my wife's.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#423

Post by oblio »

DoughnutHole wrote: post #408
oblio wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The UK has the exact opposite of this. Everything that's for sale here is finely graded according to the buyer's budget and taste. Where someone chooses to do something as innocuous as their grocery shopping in the UK says an awful lot about them. Just sayin', I went shopping in... Denver? Let's just say that there was a mall with a bunch of shops and further down the street another bunch of shops. The public at No…

Honestly the focus on financial stratification here highlights the differences between what class means in the UK and the US. In the US class distinction is (almost) entirely down to money. If you’re rich you can buy nicer things than someone poorer and so you can be immediately sorted into a higher social class. In the UK just because you’re rich that doesn’t make you upper class. British society is riddled with sub…

True, but even in the UK, I imagine that once you have the money, the next generation will be integrated, if you want to. You'll live in the right neighborhood, your kids will go to the right schools, problem solved.

It's just slower and doesn't include you directly, true.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#424

Post by dansitu »

noobermin wrote: post #299
oblio wrote: post #236

The British are living proof of the fact that amazing things[1] can be achieved when the place you live in is extremely boring. [1] For varied definitions of "amazing", such as "conquer countries 10x your size", "invent 20 sports the entire world plays", etc.

So the bit about UK food being attrocious is unfortunately true from my limited experience but the country itself has a lot of beauty, I think, as long as you look in the roght places.

Not sure where you've been eating, but even Birmingham—my unfashionable British hometown—has nine Michelin star restaurants within a short drive.

I grew up in the UK but I've lived for 15 years all over the US, and it's always confused me that Americans are convinced that British food is bad. On a whole, British supermarkets have far better produce, in both quality and diversity. UK restaurants run the gamut from cutting edge fine dining and wonderful traditional food to home-grown variants of immigrant cuisine. It's a great place to eat.

My home town is legendary for Indian restaurants—to the extent that Birmingham-style Balti curries have made their way back to India. Before you claim that this is Indian food, not British, can you name an American dish that wasn't developed by immigrants?

Home cooking is far more popular in the UK than the US: anecdotally, most British people cook most meals at home, while few of my American friends know how to boil an egg and rely almost entirely on take-out. British celebrity chefs and cooking shows are famous worldwide. It's odd to claim that British food sucks while binge-watching our prime-time baking show!

I love America and a lot of things are better over here, but food—unfortunately for me—is not one of them.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#425

Post by Cthulhu_ »

zemo wrote: post #419
russellbeattie wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was about to post the same thing! I've thought about this literally for decades. I also had to wait for years to learn what conkers are - and I'm still confused. I'd love to know the context/history/culture that DNA was referring to because it doesn't make any sense to me as written So conkers are chestnuts on a string used for childhood smashing competitions. Ooookay. But why would Yooden Vranx have "lots of" ches…

> why would Yooden Vranx have "lots of" chestnuts on his spaceship? And why "of course"? hmmm, these might be what they call "jokes"

Absurdist humour, Hitchhiker's is full of it, as is Discworld. Aggressive Britishisms as well (like conkers and tea references), like in the Cornetto trilogy.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#426

Post by Cthulhu_ »

qwertox wrote: post #89
hettygreen wrote: post #65

This article on hackernews reads the same as "Advancing Theorem Proving in LLMs through Large-Scale Synthetic Data" would on conkernews.

I'm also pretty disturbed by it being here. Even worse on place #1.

It's almost like people upvoted it or it's quiet. Commenting on it won't help; downvote it if you want, upvote things you do want to see.

I for one am here for the random things that pop up on occasion. I have zero interest in LLMs and crypto-bollocks (mainly because I'm not earning money off of it)

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#427

Post by omnicognate »

gkwelding wrote: post #367
noobermin wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the bit about UK food being attrocious is unfortunately true from my limited experience but the country itself has a lot of beauty, I think, as long as you look in the roght places.

Can confirm, as a Brit, our food is utterly shocking.

As another brit, I have better food available to me than I've encountered anywhere else, having travelled plenty in Europe, USA and Asia.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#428

Post by Cthulhu_ »

noobermin wrote: post #299
oblio wrote: post #236

The British are living proof of the fact that amazing things[1] can be achieved when the place you live in is extremely boring. [1] For varied definitions of "amazing", such as "conquer countries 10x your size", "invent 20 sports the entire world plays", etc.

So the bit about UK food being attrocious is unfortunately true from my limited experience but the country itself has a lot of beauty, I think, as long as you look in the roght places.

I don't agree; find better places to eat. I for one loved the steak & kidney pie with a guiness I had after hiking a mountain. Don't take sad Wetherspoons food as an indicator of British food.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#429

Post by Cthulhu_ »

mellosouls wrote: post #343
zarzavat wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much more likely to have died out because of smartphones. The boredom of the pre-smartphone era led to all kinds of ingenuity. Kids were bored so they found ways to not be bored. Nowadays everybody is addicted their phone, simple pleasures such as violently smashing two nuts together no longer have the same pull.

It's much more likely to have died out because of smartphones I know kids have a lot more money these days but I refuse to believe they are swinging two smartphones together instead of conkers.

I've seen enough clips of kids playing with their phone to drop them in the water to know that they probably would.

Re: World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

#430

Post by Cthulhu_ »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #351
zarzavat wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's much more likely to have died out because of smartphones. The boredom of the pre-smartphone era led to all kinds of ingenuity. Kids were bored so they found ways to not be bored. Nowadays everybody is addicted their phone, simple pleasures such as violently smashing two nuts together no longer have the same pull.

Not for long. Schools are looking at banning smartphones.

They are where I live, both elementary and secondary schools. The first results are promising; kids have more concentration, interact socially with each other more, etc.

I mean if it's a school where they also have to carry laptops and use digital schedules I don't think it makes a difference, but it's a good first step.

One issue was that each phone also has a camera, so people would seek out / make trouble on purpose, spy on people and post it online, etc.

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