I think that Vassseur isn't bad choice. But somehow I don't expect that he will stay in Ferrari for long, maybe 2-3 years until things will go wrong.
Meanwhile Williams announced that Jost Capito leaves team:
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/williams-f1-team-principal-jost-capito-steps-down/10410668/
In these few years he had done big work with Williams and interesting where he will go.

The problem is that he isn't Mercedes level driver anymore and he isn't invited there. He didn't wanted to race for teams like Haas, but I don't understand how being reserve driver can be better option than being regular driver of F1 team, even if they don't fight for high places.

If they are inactive for very long time, probably yeah, they should be removed.
Do we need replacement for them? In perfect scenario yeah, it would be good. But it's not neccessary. These boards isn't very active, so, I think that global mods is enough to keep these boards clean. Maybe, Beginners & help is a bit more active, it would be good to have dedicated mod there, but now situation isn't very bad there.
Where dedicated mod is really needed - Politics & society board.

RIP The Pharmacist, welcome The Sceptical Chymist. Congratulations that you finally got what you wanted. I think that you already lost hope that theymos will do it, but well, better later than never. Now if we talk about things which we are waiting for long time, maybe oone day theymos will answer 30 Pmalek's questions lol ?
But damn, that username is really long and more difficult than previous one. I'm glad that I picked short username for my account .

You have very good point. And it's not about just FIFA World Cup, but also about other popular competitions like EPL or Champions league. It's paradise for spammers. It's mess to allow making 10 topics about same subject. Perfectly, I think that only one topic per competition should be allowed. If not to be so strict, there can be one common topic and one self-moderated topic. All other topics should be locked. And I don't think that prediction pool topics should be counted into this category, it's a bit different stuff.

And I love these your topics. I stopped from posting in main megathreads for these leagues because it's pointless thing. Nobody won't read your post there and very soon it will go to previous page without getting any attention. While these self-moderated topics maybe aren't so popular, but at least we get genuine discussions there. I prefere quality over quantity.

I see that these news weren't posted here, so, ICYM, Manuel Neuer broke his leg while skiing and he won't be able to play this season:
https://www.dw.com/en/manuel-neuer-out-for-the-season-after-skiing-accident/a-64055769
First of all, I'm wondering how his contract allows such things like skiing? Now Sven Ulreich is supposed to be main goalkeeper, while young Johannes Schenk is going to be back up. I'm wondering is it possible that Bayern will try to get new goalkeeper during winter transfer window or they are going to remain with what they have now?

England 56 years of hurt will continue for at least 4 more years. It was good game, maybe worth of final, but someone had to lose it. Harry Kane now will get so much hate for missed penalty, but I think it's undeserved. He had solid tournament and missed penalty is just part of game. And in general, England team wasn't bad, they simply lost to another top level team, not like Spain, Portugal or Germany who were eliminated by underdogs.
Giroud proves again that he is one of crucial players in national team. And connection between him and Griezmann is amazing.
I realized just now that there is not so small chance for repeat of World Cup 2018 final - France - Croatia.

Morocco haven't conceded any goals against Croatia, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. What an elite defense! And they become first African team to reach World Cup semifinal. Maybe it's not most attractive thing to watch how they're playing, but they deserved what achieved.
Probably it was last dance for Ronaldo. He came in after substitutio, but didn't managed changed game scenario. I'm not fan of Ronaldo, I don't like him as personality, but it was sad to see his emotions after game.
Now it's time for England - France.

So, C. Ronaldo isn't in Portugal starting squad again. Not surprise after all. Does anyone expect that Morocco can make another upset and eliminate Portugal? I'm not sure about it, but I'm not going to back Portugal in betting.
Can't wait for England - France game. I'm going to put some money on France, but I wouldn't be against if yesterday's scenario will repeat and we will see extra time and penalties.

I have no words about today's games, it's fantastic. Until maybe 80th minute it looked that Netherlands stand no chance to make an comeback. But that second Weghorst goal, Koopmeiners is simply genius to make such pass when everyone is waiting for shot. Only Netherlands and Van Gall team can do such things, it remind me that game when they substituted goalkeeper for penalty shootout.
In extra time Argentina were better, they had more chances to end without penalties. And penalties, another great performance by goalkeeper, this time Martinez managed to save 2 penalties.

---

I'm late to the party with congratulations to Croatians here. Now I'm trying to imagine what's going on in Croatia now . I said that I don't see Croatia eliminating Brazil, well, I was completely wrong. I said that only chance for them to stay in game - not to concede early goal. And longer it continues - pressure for Brazil players grows. And penalties, Livakovic is hero again. How is is playing just for Dinamo Zagreeb (with all respect) and not in one of major European leagues? And that moment when Neymar didn't even got chance to take penalty as we was 5th choice.

This 2 days break was great thing indeed to recharge batteries. We had very intensive marathong of football for past few weeks. And now it's time for most delicious part of World Cup.
Dear Croatians, sorry to say, but I don't see how your team can eliminat such force like Brazil. It's only pair in 1/4 finals where we have such big favorite. Against all other remaining teams Croatia would have much better chances.
It's most important to not concede early goal, but still, it will be so difficult to defend for whole 90 minutes. Offcourse, I don't pretend to be right.

Probably nobody would be very surprised if this game would go to extra time and penalties. But I agree that chances for Argentina is bigger, just because of Messi factor. I didn't liked how Argentina looked in group stage, but against USA they showed different face.

During this World Cup many people in Iran didn't supported their national team because it's considered that national team represent regime of Iran and people don't support them as sign of protest. During first game, Iran players remained silent during national anthem as sign of support for protesters.
So, nothing strange that there's many in Iran who are happy about national team loss. But getting killed for celebrating loss of your national team, it's something people. People should have right to choose, support your national team or go against it. If you can be killed just for it, then it's not difficult to imagine what they're doing with people who protest against regime.

Are you asking this question seriously? Celebrating loss of your national team, how it can be a reason to kill someone?

If they can kill for not wearing hijab properly, it's nothing surprising that can get shot dead for things like this. It's Iran after all.

News from alternative reality - Russia destroyed 4 HIMARS systems (again):
https://tass.com/politics/1547125
Probably they already destroyed few times more HIMARS than Ukraine actually have.

So many conspiracy theories in one post. But I think that you forgot to add something about Covid and vaccines that it were made to reduce world population.

So? Quote from 75th edition of Time - ''Person of the Year is an annual issue of the United States news magazine and website Time featuring a person, a group, an idea, or an object that "for better or for worse ... has done the most to influence the events of the year"
Where it's said that it have to be person who have done something positive? Shortly, it's person who was most influential that year. Probably half of these people were selected from negative perspective.

I didn't realized until now that there is prize for reaching Round of 16 . Sent my BTC to PM now.
I checked questions for the next round and I see that you guys have done great job again. Just my opinion about one question - I think that question about winners of games, like you have for England - France game isn't needed. Basically, it's repeat what we're doing in prediction pools.
Good luck to all guys who are still in the game!

Why do you want to make things so complicated? Can you at name me at least one website which have their own autocorrect script? How Bitcointalk is so special that it need to have it?
I think that such thing would make more harm than good. We all know how sometimes autoccrect replace words that it change meaning of whole sentence. This is why I always have autocorrect disabled. These who want can use spellcheckers on PC/mobile browsers. Google keyboard also have good feature where it try to predict word that you write and shows correct spelling of it.
But after all, is itspelling mistakes is such big problem here? Will you fail to understand my mind if I will miss one letter in word? I don't think that's such big deal. I think it's bigger problem when people not fluent in English struggling to express themselves that people would understand them.

Thanks for making this topic, I'm already waiting for competition. This year it will be very good time to watch darts because there won't be any football at the same time - World Cup will end next week and if I'm not mistaken, club football will resume on Christmas.
I don't have any favorite this year, but i expect that it will be between usual suspects and we won't see new faces reaching last rounds. Like always, I will support my countrymen Lucky D - Darius Labanauskas.
In recent years it was common Fallon Sherrock competing with men, so, it will be something new to see even 3 women playing. It would be nice to see more women able to compete on such high level.

I'm not sure why charity programme has to be linked with Christmas. I'm rather linked to donate to specific cases. Something like people suffering from wars, earthquakes, flooding, diseases like cancer and etc. I'm sure that there is plenty of people and organizations who are waiting for help and you can donate them without making charity programme on Bitcointalk.
Don't understand me wrong, but even with just good intentions, things may end not so well. We already saw such cases here. Transparency is most important thing, you have to count every Satoshi that you spend and show everything in public By collecting money from other people you take big responsibility and if something will go wrong, it will be your fault

I don't know how many of you read RUSI analysis of Russian-pre-invasion plans, but it's interesting material. It's long, but you can see short summary here:
https://euromaidanpress.com/2022/12/04/russian-invasion-of-ukraine-rusi-report/
Full version:
https://static.rusi.org/359-SR-Ukraine-Preliminary-Lessons-Feb-July-2022-web-final.pdf
Shortly, they planned thatactive phase of operation will took 10 days and final phase of it will be in August. But something went wrong for them and they were too confident about their plan.
Offcourse, probably it's not worth to accept everything in such reports as true fact, but still, it's interesting material.


Yeah, you have good point and from what I understand, it can be exactly same model drone as that one which attacked air base in Russia. There is news whic kinda related with it. Germany refused to give  MIM-104 Patriot systems to Ukraine, which previously were promised to be sent to Poland. Such systems not just would protect Western Ukraine but also would give extra protection for neighbour countries like Poland, Hungary or Moldova.

That moment when Portugal scores 6 goals and none of it belongs to Ronaldo and he also din't made an assist. Few years ago it was difficult to imagine Ronaldo left on bench for decisive knockout stage game. But this tournament probably marks the end of glorious era of CR7.
And probably nobody didn't saw Portugal scoring 6 goals before the game. After all, Switzerland were considered as one of best defense in World Cup. But today everything went wrong for them.
Spain, I feel disappointed that they got eliminated, but they deserved it. Football is simple game, if you want to win, you have to score. Spain dominated game, but didn't managed to score. And this is what happens when you try to choose your opponent and pick easier path. Karma exists and now Spain can be happy that they won't have to face Brazil in this tournament.
Now we have break until Friday. This tournament is probably worst from all pools that I ever played. Dropped to 46th place... But at least I'm not doing that bad in betting.

Congrats @Harkorede with deserved win and good luck in the next round. You had best performance from all participants in this round with 7 points, so din't had chance against you.
As I said already, I reached my minimal goal to get out of group, so, I'm not really disappointed to get eliminated now. Now I'm going home together with Spain and now will watch this competition as neutral spectator .
And thanks to Cro2 guys for making these difficult questions, it was really fun to play.

Interesting things happening in Russia. In Engels (Saratov Oblast) air base two Tu-95 bombers were attacked by drone.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhp4Ifj-8k4
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/05/details-of-the-two-russian-military-airbases-hit-by-explosions
It's about 500-600km from Ukraine border or frontline and Ukraine don't have such long range weapons. Russia says it was Tu-141 Strizh drone from Ukraine. Even if it's true, then it shows how effective Russian air defense is if old soviet drone can fly few hundreds km through territory of Russia without being hit.
Meanwhile in Dyagilevo, Ryazan Oblast, just about 200 km from Moscow fuel tanker exploded and damaged one aircraft.
Coincidence or no, but today Ukraine announced startof testing of their own made drone with range of 1000 km. Yes, it can reach Moscow and much more:
https://mezha.media/en/2022/12/05/ukroboronprom-drones/

While Russia made another desperate attack against critical infrastructure of Ukraine and seems that this time it made least damage from all attempts. BTW, where Shahed drones is gone? Either they already used all that they have or these lawn movers simply can't work in cold weather.