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World conker champion found with steel chestnut, cleared of cheating

theguardian.com

431–440 of 601 posts

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

#431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheating at a PvE game like Helldivers is basically a victimless crime (I don’t do it, but I can see why people would).

It is a crime against oneself.

It is a pretty straightforward wave shooter game. I had fun with it, but it isn’t high art or anything. I enjoy games like Hades or Dark Souls where the fact that you keep losing is an interesting part of the narrative and builds the overall ambiance. Helldivers (2, at least) is not really that sort of game, the plot is more like fun, even sillier Starship Troopers.

I played it properly, but I think is somebody decided to fast-forward through some bits they wouldn’t be denying themselves too much.

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

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The 23-year-old said: “My conker disintegrated in one hit, and that just doesn’t happen … I’m suspicious of foul play and have expressed my surprise to organisers.” It seems the suspicious was pretty quick.

Playing conkers at 23 years of age is a bit wrong. It is a bit like building LEGO kits as an adult, particularly wrong if the goal is to just build the design on the box and put the completed model on a shelf, rather than build your own creative masterpiece. Please resist the urge to mod me down in flames for the above, but, in former times, buying LEGO at the ripe old age of fourteen would be a bit shameful in the s…

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

#433
post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one said it was true for every game. Conker is more akin to corn hole than football, but maybe even more obscure.

It's not obscure in the UK. You can find any number of equally 'obscure' cultural practices referenced in American newspapers without explanation. It's unreasonable to expect a British newspaper to be free of British cultural background assumptions just because it's viewable by an international audience.

It appears that about 38% of visits to their site come from the UK, so it might be that the majority of their readers aren't familiar with conker. https://www.similarweb.com/website/theguardian.com/#geograph...

I guess your point makes sense, though. There isn't the obligation to explain anything. I just personally think it's good writing to anticipate what your readers may not likely understand.

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

#434
post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or are you expected to have to google it? It's clearly the implication that you shouldn't have to Google for it. That isn't directness, it's passive aggressiveness, which the Dutch are not stereotypically known for.

And you are? The one who deals out the stereotypes?

Is no one allowed to mention stereotypes, because there's no defined authority? The Dutch being direct is about as uncontroversial as you could get.

In any case, the comment I replied to already made the claim. I deliberately weakened it by saying it was a stereotype rather than talking as if it were unconditionally true.

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

#435
post #356
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…

In Watching the English , Kate Fox gives a thorough explanation of how much she can pin down someone's social class by what they buy at Marks and Spencers (which is a department store that's branched out into groceries). I forget the exact details, but I think it was that doing a full food shop there made you upper-middle class, buying some food items there made you middle-middle class, and buying food items for spec…

India would like to have a word with you.

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

#436
post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh no, 'climbing the greasy pole' takes at least three generations. The 'right neighbourhood' is itself a complicated concept, because the working and middle classes in the UK live cheek-by-jowl. I live in a street of rundown Victorian working-class houses that are so close to each other and the street that everyone has net curtains in their windows to stop passers-by from seeing in, but from my bedroom window I can see into the back gardens of the comfortable 1930s middle-class houses in the next street, which have leafy front gardens to provide privacy. As for schools, much of the middle-middle class and all of the upper-middle and upper class pay fees to educate their children at private schools, some of which charge more than a software engineer's salary in annual fees.

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

#437
post #30

The conkeror this year is from Indianapolis! She only learned about conkers a few months ago.

The field of entrants is probably like 50.

Sad to experience this kind of Indianapolisphobia in the hallowed pages of HN

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

#438
post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The field of entrants is probably like 50.

Sad to experience this kind of Indianapolisphobia in the hallowed pages of HN

Judging by the photos it's definitely in the 2 digits, although given the existence of a number 70 let's assume it's ~99: https://www.worldconkerchampionships.com/gallery/all/Geoff%2...

I guess it could be that each country can only send at most one representative (making her the US Conker Champion) but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's a little unlikely.

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

#439
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…

This is generally true but not entirely. The UK like most other countries is becoming more like the US (think tech tycoons, celebrities, 'influencers'). And the US has always had some pockets with similar (though less rigid) class distinctions (think WASPs and places like Martha's vineyard, parts of New England and 'old' New York, many parts of the South).

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

#440
post #256
post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> conquer countries 10x your size > invent 20 sports the entire world plays I mean, the two are kind of related, causally...

Football wasn't spread (just) through conquest. The UK never conquered Argentina or Brazil yet if you'd look at football fans in both countries you'd think Argentina or Brazil not only invented football itself, but they also built an entire cult around it :-p

Football/soccer is a British import likely 'invented' somewhere else
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