I think probably the return of designer Rory Byrne that was agreed earlier this year is potentially the most important move for Ferrari, which could set them up well for success in 2022 (as that's the car Byrne is working on). Luca Cordero di Montezemolo may have won everything with Schumacher's Ferrari, but Byrne designed Schumacher's cars and won everything with Schumacher at both Ferrari and Benetton... if you want a genius designer to build a title-winning car, there are few better options out there...

https://thesportsrush.com/f1-news-rory-byrne-the-man-behind-all-of-michael-schumachers-title-winning-cars-at-benetton-and-ferrari/

Ignore the misspelling in that quote, it's Byrne, not 'Bryne'!

Obviously he's a top driver, and he's not really competing against other top drivers there... but still, I'm really happy to see him back and doing well already. F1 needs more world-quality drivers, and he's an interesting character too, which the sport needs.
The 2021 season will I suspect be another Mercedes procession. But 2022, when we have a rules reset and a system designed for closer, more exciting racing, with more dependent on driver skill than on the car... that should be something to really look forward to.

It's not. It make appear to be volatile if you are only looking at the last couple of weeks (1st image)... but this is nothing in historic terms. Basically the price has risen significantly over the last couple of months. Once it got into ATH territory, there was a pullback, followed by a small increase back towards ATH again. If we look longer term, and on a logarithmic scale (2nd image) so that we can see volatility at lower price points, then December 2020 looks quite stable.

One thing that is sometimes overlooked about this season is that Mercedes were so dominant early on that they stopped developing the car and moved their focus onto developing the 2021 car. The expectation was that Red Bull, who were continuing to work on their 2020 car, would start to close the gap as the season progressed. And that's what happened.

Here's a quote from back in early October:
https://www.sportsmole.co.uk/formula-1/mercedes/news/wolff-admits-mercedes-2020-car-development-stopped_418539.html

It's going back a while, but I do miss the crazy hell-raising Biden of the Obama years...



https://politics.theonion.com/shirtless-biden-washes-trans-am-in-white-house-driveway-1819570732

We are getting a sparkly new aircraft carrier! That someone in the future will have to pay for.

It's not just France, it's everyone. Modern politics is all about short-termism. Soundbites not policies. What looks good today rather than what is good tomorrow. This is partly due to sensationalist media coverage and partly due to elections coming around every few years, bringing new people into power. Governments want to look good right now, in order to maintain their support; they are disincentivised from doing something that might be costly right now but reap huge rewards in five or ten years' time... because whoever is in power at that future time will doubtless take all the credit, whilst condemning their 'fiscally irresponsible' predecessors who actually initiated the beneficial change.

Not sure what the answer is. You'd think that maybe the situation would get worse and worse until it reached the level of absurdity, at which point it would all collapse and we'd start again with a more responsible approach to governing... but arguably we are well past the point of absurdity already.

Trump is a bit of an anomaly. Other than him, looking at Democrats vs Republicans as a whole, there is very little difference. There is a consensus on almost everything. Democrats are outraged at Republican behaviour, Republicans are outraged at Democrat behaviour... but the two parties are 99% the same. The whole point of the two-party system is that it is oppositional, 'us' vs 'them', and everyone is directed to focus on the tiny differences, as a distraction from their overwhelming similarities.

Yes, an unlucky way to end. I hope he gets that Red Bull drive for next year, he deserves it. I hope that this race isn't the end of his career, it's not the best way to go out. He is much better than Albon, who surely can't retain the seat for next year.


Yes, it was a nice touch. I still think he's overrated as a driver, but let's hope he can return to form next year with the new team.

I think it should solve a lot of people's problems. Crypto has long struggled to attract newcomers because of the degree of technical expertise required to even create a wallet. The Bitamp wallet is very good at what it does, and the ease of use is very impressive. You can literally set up a wallet in a couple of clicks. No confusing jargon for newcomers, extremely clean and straightforward interface. All good.

I know others have suggested having a manual fee option, but I don't think this would be a good idea. I think the priority/regular/slow options are all that is required and helps to maintain that simple interface, which should help to draw in newcomers who might feel apprehensive if they were faced with too much jargon. Perhaps a little comment somewhere (in the FAQs?) explaining the difference might help, and that 'priority' is more expensive (and maybe detail how much more expensive). That comment is my only real suggestion for potential improvements, it's a great wallet and extremely good at what it tries to do.

Exactly, I couldn't agree more. For anyone who is unaware of the history, a good place to start might be reading about the Sykes-Picot line. Britain and France just decided to carve up the middle-east between them, with an arbitrary partition line that absolutely disregarded thousands of years of local identities, politics and ethnic and tribal groupings. Colonialist contempt for 'lesser' peoples has caused vast amounts of misery and conflict, and the after-effects are still being felt today. And as the US rose to replace Britain and France as the global power in the middle of the last century, so it also took on their role of creating global carnage.

I think Hamilton is still struggling with the after-effects of the virus. Given Bottas' poor showing in the last race where he was upstaged by Russell, this is a great opportunity for Bottas to try to restore some credibility, immediately after being upstaged by Russell, against a weakened Hamilton, and before the season finishes.
Not sure whether he'll beat Hamilton, but in any case there is still a chance that Verstappen will upstage them both.

Of course if Hamilton was on normal form and starting in these positions, the race outcome would be Hamilton win with Verstappen and Bottas scrapping for second. This is a good chance for a win for both of them, but it's more important for Bottas.

Wolves - Villa is quite tame so far. Nil - nil at the moment, with no real huge chances for either side. Villa probably slightly on top, but it's shaping up to be what it looks like on paper - a closely fought battle between a couple of mid table teams, not great, not bad, just... middle. If it needs a moment of genius to break the deadlock, then I suppose eyes are on Grealish - but let's not forget this is the league debut for the highly promising Fábio Silva for Wolves... if I had to pick a winner, I think Silva might nick a goal.

The fundamental problem, I suppose, is that a lot of people don't think for themselves. If everyone was responsible and questioned everything they were told, no matter the source, rather than just accepting 'facts' blindly, then democracy would work a lot better. There is always so much talk about voting being a right, about universal suffrage being a right, but there is very little talk about how it is also a responsibility. If you live in a democracy, and especially if that democracy has been hard fought for, then it is your responsibility to reach your own personal conclusions rather than just blindly accepting whatever crap you're told, whether from the left or the right.

Hamilton should be a rock-solid favourite. And his chances will of course be increased by the fact that a lot of major sporting events were cancelled in 2020, no Olympics, no Euro 2020, etc.

Regardless of these, he should be favourite anyway for this year becoming statistically the greatest ever in his sport. But he has suffered here in the past, winning 6 world titles before but only 1 sports personality win... so it's by no means a definite. There is also some establishment backlash against the BLM movement, in which Hamilton has been a prominent figure, so this could also count against him.

Okay, so from your statement:
1) You agree that someone who is say 1,000 miles away from any other human has less chance of catching CV19 than someone who is living a 'normal' urban western lifestyle and interacting with lots of different people all the time.
2) I will assume (correct me if I'm wrong) that you don't think this is a sudden cut-off somewhere, e.g. 99 miles away from anyone else, you are still as likely to catch it as someone in a city centre, but move to 100 miles away and suddenly you have 0% chance of catching it.
3) In which case, if it's not a sudden cut-off, then it's a gradual transition, i.e. any increase of separation from people, any reduction in interaction with different people does reduce your chances of catching it.

Do you agree on all of these three points?

Yes, it's good that racism is being addressed appropriately, and good that both teams walked off. I agree it may be unlikely that the offical intended to be racist, but the fact that he did make a racist remark regardless of intent is still a problem, and one that needs to be addressed by both UEFA and the Romanian authorities. The officials need to all be in alignment on this, regardless of which country they are from.

I can't watch the linked video (unless I start messing about with the VPN), but other channels have been doing similar. Some may be because they don't want to report on 'facts' that have been widely discredited, but I suspect a lot of channels are doing it purely for the drama so they can cause controversy and sensation by - gasp! - cutting away from the president!!! Look at this channel! So daring! So edgy! Watch us now! You never know what crazy/outrageous thing we'll do next!

The question of balance and accuracy in mainstream media is obviously a difficult one. You want people to be free to say what they want, but at the same time you don't want to give airtime to liars who mislead people with obvious untruths. Not talking about Trump at all here, it's a wider issue. We have this across all sorts of topics, where channels that are supposedly (or do even actually try to be) impartial are fastidious in giving airtime to opponents of any reported view. For example, despite near unanimity amongst climate scientists on the subject of human-caused climate change, many channels will allow a climate-skeptic equal airtime, even though they're representing a tiny minority view. But channels decide for themselves on what is 'too much', for example here in the UK if there is someone talking about evolution, the channels are unlikely to give airtime to creationists, because evolution has become established fact. I suspect in other countries this standard may be different. But the line is always drawn somewhere. If someone says a problem is 'global', then there aren't going to be many channels giving airtime to flat-earthers disputing the world 'globe'.

The question is where to draw the line, and what constitutes 'truth'. No easy answer.

Jet Cash, I'm still interested in your thoughts on this post.

Is this the Oxford/AstraZeneca one? I understand the objection, but there is a reason they're using the meningitis vaccine. This is a key part of ensuring that the trial is blind, i.e. ensuring that participants don't know whether they've received the actual vaccine or a placebo. If the CV19 vaccine causes a bit of soreness/redness around the injection site, plus other mild symptoms... then ideally you want your placebo to trigger the same apparent effects (whilst obviously still being ineffective against CV19). Whereas if people know or strongly suspect they've been given a placebo, then this obviously impacts the results.

Another issue if participants can determine whether or not they've received a placebo is highlighted in this example from a US trial. The participant had no reaction at the injection site, so believes she received the placebo. She now wants the real vaccine because, as she rightly states, she put herself at risk in participating in the first place... but the likelihood is that she won't be allowed it, because they don't want to unblind the trial, and they don't want to prevent themselves from identifying any long-term effects. It's a bit of an ethical dilemma, as people given a placebo after volunteering for the trial now find themselves at the very back of the queue for the actual vaccine.

I'd say 'possible' rather than 'probable'. I think everyone expects him to carry on next year and beyond. Not sure what you mean about the health side - he always seems ultra-healthy, so other than the CV19 that he's coming out of now, I'm not aware of anything.

Perez deserved that win, and he is one of the better drivers on the grid. Red Bull makes perfect sense, and I really hope he gets the drive. And having two good RB drivers would really put the pressure on Bottas to deliver, as it starts to make the Merc chase for the constructors' title a little more difficult.