Off Topic Thread 3.0

Stheno wrote: »

They went down to 20/1 yesterday

Yeah..my friend (who I got the tip from) got them at 66/1 when he got the tip. Made a nice few bob!!

Gavin Mortimer rumouring that Mourad Boudjelal will be France's new secretary for sport. His madness will finally be experienced by those outside our world!

Off-Off-Topic, I was having a great chat with a bunch of Toulon fans on Saturday night and they were asking me (through my horrible French) why everyone dislikes Toulon but loves Clermont (alongside a bunch of Clermont fans who found their exasperation hilarious), when I mentioned Boudjelal being easy to dislike they all agreed and said they wished he would either keep his mouth shut or leave. Interesting chat.

I have a feeling if Boudjelal does get involved in politics he might end up with a very short career for that reason. Or maybe he'll become France's answer to Boris Johnson.

Deleted User wrote: »

PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is AMAZING.

awec wrote: »

Yea it's brilliant, there's a boards group on discord of people who play if you ever want to squad up.

It'll be even better once they fix all the perf issues.

How good a rig do I need for it?

Just upgraded pretty much everything, but only got a midrange graphics card.

Erik Shin wrote: »

Surely not onboard graphics?

Assume he means gtx770, it won't run on on-board graphics.

Deleted User wrote: »

Nvidia GTX770

I exaggerated how good my graphics card is - it is old and entry level! It is something I intend on replacing when I get paid next.

I've got a i5 7700k, a nice quick SSD and a nice quick large Hard Drive. New good ram.

So just need to ship out the Radeon R7 360

awec wrote: »

It's probably borderline. It'll run but not that smooth. Depends on what your tolerance is for random FPS drops to unplayable levels.

I have an i7, 16gb and a gtx 1070 and even when I have it on low settings I only get ~90fps from this game and it drops a lot in certain situations.

Wow. It is fairly poorly optimized so! Need to upgrade the rig before the new COD comes up. I've been dying to try BF1 too. So I guess I'll just lump this in with the other games that I am going to pay a lot of money but never have time to play!

Buer wrote: »

I heard him. Not an impressive speaker but an insight into the mindset of those who are seeking pay restoration. His only real response when put to him that it was unsustainable spending on public salaries that contributed to the crash his mantra was "I disagree". He seemed happy to put all the blame squarely on the banks and developers.

In 2008 we were guilty of sleepwalking into a financial crisis. Now we're not sleepwalking into anything. We are consciously and knowingly strolling into it. Tax intakes are only now starting to reach 2007 levels again. This is the rationale for pay restoration. Aside from the fact that the pay levels were completely bloated and unrealistic, there are approximately an additional 500k people now in this country. With the same tax intake, the available funds are significantly tighter yet the unions want a return to their previous salaries.

It boggles the mind that the average public sector salary is €47k a year.

Getting back to this topic, I know this refers to NZ and not Ireland, but it was an interesting graphic I saw in the NZ Herald.

I despair at people like him being elected.

thomond2006 wrote: »

I despair at people like him being elected.

Every time I start to shake my head at someone like Trump being elected, I look at MHR/DHR, Bertie Ahern, Charlie Haughey, Michael Lowry etc.

We're not much better, if at all. You'll still have a significant chunk of older people who will defend CJH. I was appalled when I heard Mary O'Rourke spoke in such glowing terms about him on the radio last year, referring to how charismatic he was.

thomond2006 wrote: »

True. The likes of Lowry only exist because he's being empowered by the electorate. As long as people vote for those who only care about their local area and not the national agenda of forming a government and running the country it's going to continue.

I was in school near Thurles. And i will always remember in discussions in class people always supported him as he "got them something" be that jobs or whatever
Irish people in general vote this way and nothing will change unless you change the system and how exactly do you do that?
There are many tds who speak very little in the dail but they do lots of work in their constituency so will always get voted in again

That cycle is only a small element of how they bolster their support. The Healy Rae clan do a huge amount of work in their constituency and are influential figures down there through this work. They play the game very well and are shrewd operators. The amount of influence they hold with the local council and advocating local causes right down to individual cases goes far more to securing their seats.

Of course this influence is bolstered by the fact that two of the councillors on Kerry Co. Council are members of their family. But it all feeds back in to how they get things done for the local community and garner support. They didn't get the highest percentage of any candidates in the country by trying to play up to Dublin condescension.

I've seen the Kerry electorate ridiculed a number of times but the critics shut up pretty quickly when they're told any one of a number of morons that have held office in their constituency. My constituency repeatedly elected Ivor Callely, for example. We're a great bunch altogether.