This is a good point. Being successful in sports betting is due in large part to having better knowledge than most people - and a big part of this is familiarity. We can't be expected to know every last detail across all teams, but for our own team it is quite natural that we have a deeper understanding. Really it makes a lot more sense to bet for/against your own team than it does to do the same for other teams where you lack that specialist knowledge.

For obvious reasons the pandemic can have a much greater effect in individual sports than in team sports, particularly where the competition is based on cumulative results over a long period of time. Considering the Formula 1 World Championship as an example... Lewis Hamilton is currently a long way ahead of the rest, and looks set to be world champion. But... this is dependent on total points acquired over the course of the whole season. If he contracts Covid and misses a few races, he can find himself out of contention. The issue is not that people have Covid, it's that some people have it whilst others don't. Sports are carrying on as best they can, but we can expect weird results and unpredictable absences to continue for a while yet.

Bookmakers exploit the fact that we want our favourites to win. If you want to bet on City A winning a football match against City B, the worst place you can make the bet is in City A, you would get better odds making it in City B. Of course a part of giving worse odds is that a large proportion of people are betting on the local favourite, so they have to cover potential losses... but it's undeniable that they are exploiting people who are making emotional decisions.
Of course some people have been known to do the opposite - if England are playing a big football match and I want them to win, it is tempting to place a bet on them losing, so that if they win I'm happy, and if they lose at least I make some profit.

It is of course difficult and a highly subjective decision on which there is unlikely to be a consensus. For me, we have to break it down, which simplifies the question.

Nadal is the GOAT on a clay court. I don't think there can be any serious objection to that.

But who is the GOAT across all surfaces? It can't be Nadal, he just hasn't won enough of the other grand slams - his superiority on clay masks the fact that he's not quite up to the standards of the other two on other surfaces.

So Federer 20 vs Djokovic 17. I'd say Federer edges it.


This is a valid point, which is often brought up in GOAT discussions. I would argue though that whilst we can't compare talent very easily, we can certainly say that due to improved diet, fitness, strength, speed, and with highly qualified support staff... modern players can get more out of their talent than could players in the past. So their standard of play in general is better.


~

Incidentally, tennis balls are a great way to protect yourself from goat attacks.

When he reaches the sun, we all die:


BADecker - I understand how much you want to fire yourself at light speed into the sun, but the downside is that in doing so you wipe out all life on Earth. I'm afraid we are going to have to abandon the plan.


... which suggests an alternative in which we can all survive, and you can travel at light speed, and the sun doesn't explode. You simply need to lose all of your rest mass m_restBADecker ... not most, all. I believe there are slimming shakes that can do this. If you can become massless, then you will travel at light speed. The downside for you is that due to relativistic time dilation, you will no longer experience the passage of time at all - the entire history of the universe from beginning to end will become a single eternal present. A bit like lockdown.

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Permit me another shameless plug for the best thread on the forum ^{[CITATION NEEDED]}.

I think, from the previous posts, we have to take the relativistic infinite mass BADecker as that reference point. If we can accelerate it to light-speed (such that we are travelling at light speed relative to the BADecker), the expanding universe takes care of the rest and moves it beyond our frame of reference. Essentially by creating a large separation quickly, we are exposing the local nature of special relativity. Unless you're talking about the links in the original post? I didn't read them because I'm lazy and - in neat counterpoint to my own posts - they're probably nonsense.
One day I'll be good enough for ChipMixer.

Nice idea, but I think this overlooks the fact that (ideally) taxation needs to be progressive.
If say everything is taxed at a flat 20%, then someone on the breadline pays the same percentage tax as a billionaire.
You also have the issue of determining what is income (and how money in is balanced against money out), what is profit, etc.

This is an important point that is overlooked. Hamilton nowadays has a very mature outlook, with one eye always on the championship standings. Whilst he does complain in adversity as we sometimes hear in-race, he doesn't let it affect his driving. This is in contrast to the Hamilton of a few years back when he was fighting Rosberg, and a bad team call or a bit of bad luck would have him sulking and could affect him for the full race weekend. Nowadays he has eradicated that weakness, and is just relentless.

Quick point on the Bottas retirement - his mistake actually cost him slightly more than the retirement (mistake: from +7 to -10 to Ham [Bottas 1st, Ham 2nd -> Ham 1st, Bottas 3rd]= -17 swing; retirement: another -15 on top of the -17).

Technically we need to consider a couple of additional points. One, the universe is expanding. Two, space is not a perfect vacuum.

In order to propel our BADecker such that it moves beyond our light cone, the first point (space is expanding everywhere, all the time) means that a slightly sub-luminal velocity would be sufficient. However the second point works against us: the BADecker would not achieve light-speed-in-vacuum due to its interaction with cosmic detritus. So whilst with a huge amount of energy we could propel the BADecker at sufficient velocity, it may be, if the first point does not outweigh the second, that at times when the BADecker is traversing a particularly thinly populated region of the interstellar medium, we still catch a tantalising glimpse.

The other option is that we somehow fold space around the BADecker, such that we can move it beyond our light cone.

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Edit: Also, be careful where you point that thing. If we fire a BADecker at near light speed away from us but directly towards the sun, then its huge relativistic mass m_relBADecker would mean the kinetic energy it/he possesses could conceivably be sufficient to blow up the star, and atomise everything out to the orbit of Mars. Frankly I'm starting to think the whole plan is a bit irresponsible.

It's impossible for an object with mass to travel at the speed of light. This is basic physics.

If anyone is interested, there's some discussion of light speed in the quantum physics thread here.

His record at the French is phenomenal and likely will never be equalled. Winning for 13 separate years is basically like winning every year for most players' whole careers.
But - although he dismantled Djokovic, it only looks inevitable in hindsight. Going into the final, Djokovic had won every match he'd played this year (ignoring the default at the US). The last time he played Nadal at the French (2015), Nadal lost. This combined with the Autumn conditions made it appear to be quite an even contest. Of course we know it didn't turn out that way in the end.


I don't believe this. Djokovic has a history whenever he starts getting into trouble of suffering from imaginary injuries. It already happened in this tournament against Carreno Busta.
I don't think making it to the final with imaginary injuries makes someone a champion; winning the final is what makes them the champion.

In theory the pandemic is good for bitcoin. In practice it's probably bad.

The economic effects of the pandemic highlight the deficiencies and inadequacies of fiat. Particularly the 'print more money to get yourself out of trouble' response. So in theory this makes a decentralised asset with a maximum supply an enticing proposition.

However... whilst bitcoin's long-term future may be as a safe-haven asset and a store-of-value, for the moment it is still widely seen as a highly speculative asset... a 'good times' option, something to throw some money at in the hope of astronomical returns. This also means that it's the first thing to sell when there are signs of economic trouble. So given that we haven't really yet seen the full effect of the economic woes from Covid, we should be aware that there is a chance that crypto prices may fall significantly. Or they may not... they've been quite resilient so far. All we can do is make our informed best guesses, no-one knows for sure what will happen.

A quick note on the points loss situation for Bottas in the F1 race - he was unlucky with the mechanical failure, but he actually lost more points to Hamilton through his own error in the race than he did through his DNF.

Ignoring fastest lap for simplicity:

• From starting positions, Bottas 25 points, Hamilton 18 points... so +7 to Bottas;
• Bottas' error under Hamilton pressure put Hamilton into the lead (25pts) and dropped Bottas to 3rd (15pts)... so -10 to Bottas, a 17 point loss from starting positions;
• Bottas' mechanical failure then lost him those 15pts, so an additional -15 on top of the -17 he lost through his error

A 69 point lead now with 6 races remaining - Hamilton looks untouchable.

ETH against USD should continue to grow with the imminent arrival of 2.0, and the continued DeFi fever.
ETH against BTC is of course different - but even then I would expect ETH to grow, it's only around 25% of its ATH whereas BTC is over 50%... so history does suggest that ETH has plenty of room to move.

The US will do whatever it likes, the only consideration is likely whether any action will have a negative effect on any US allies - although this would likely be a minor consideration, and not sufficient to sway a decision.
The US under Trump however is less interested in international affairs than is normally the case, so is perhaps less likely to act.

I'll quote my 9/11 example again.

It's a grey area though, 'direct national security threat' can and does mean anything. Similar to how Department of Defense is all about attack rather than defence.

I'll add again - nothing against the US here, it's just how the most powerful nations have always behaved.

I'm giving you a merit for this part, because of course you are correct, and I was wrong to consider it two properly distinct teams. However there should be some qualification here. The current "Mercedes" team is technically the re-badged Brawn team... and Mercedes did stay with McLaren until 2014, after Hamilton had left. We have to remember at the time it was considered by many to be a huge gamble from Hamilton to join what was - at the time - an uncompetitive Mercedes team.

2007 with spygate, yes... but not really 2008, that was after the controversy and McLaren had to submit their car for rigorous inspection prior to the season starting to ensure there were no illegally copied parts. Hamilton's title was 2008. But that's irrelevant anyway, as this is about the quality of the car rather than the driver cheating. Schumacher was one of the all-time greats, but he had a history of winning by cheating when necessary... a part of the ruthlessness that made him a winner. His win-at-all-costs mentality helped guide him to those seven titles, but 1994 in particular should have seen him disqualified. He has seven titles, but at least one is tarnished, as is his legacy through incidents like the one posted above by LTU_btc, where his move on (former team-mate) Barrichello was not far from attempted murder.

Hamilton and Schumacher are both great drivers, but for me Hamilton edges it as the greatest because he drives clean. Likely this time next year he'll be on the verge of an eighth title.

Like he did with McLaren in 2008? And almost in 2007 in his debut season. So he's already won with two teams.

I'm starting to think Hamilton is better. Looking back on Schumacher's titles, he did get one of them by cheating... 1994 Damon Hill would have been world champion if Schumacher hadn't deliberately rammed him off the track. So really it should be 6 titles. 1997 he tried the same thing on Villeneuve, but it backfired and Schumacher was disqualified from the entire championship for that season. He had similar outrageous cheating attempts, like when he stopped on track in qualifying to stop championship rival Alonso beating him to pole. And when he tried to crash into championship rival (and reigning world champion) Hakkinen in 2000.
Hamilton sometimes races close to the edge, but he has never outright cheated in the way Schumacher did - Schumacher was a hugely talented driver, but the cheating particularly for the 1994 title, can't be ignored.

Wow. Didn't see that coming. Absolute demolition job by Nadal; completely dismantled Djokovic. Remember Djokovic hadn't lost a match all year (ignoring that one default), he'd been in superb form... but this is Nadal at Roland Garros, and you can never write him off. Astonishing performance, particularly in those opening two sets. Djokovic wasn't even playing that badly, but Nadal was playing like a machine, perfect tennis. Djokovic just didn't get a chance. And by the time he started to recover somewhat in the third, it was too little too late.

There can't be many better examples of dominance in any sport than Nadal at the French. Can't believe he's won 13 here... that's longer than many whole tennis careers.

He is quite strong over one lap in qualifying, his problem is that he is no match for Hamilton over the course of a whole race.
But he starts on pole, so he has everything in his favour. The difference is, if Hamilton gets into the first corner in the lead, he's probably going to win, whereas if Bottas gets into the first corner in the lead, you'd still think Hamilton has a decent chance of overtaking him.

I think it's 50/50 between the two Mercedes drivers this time. We're unlikely to see rain livening things up; the latest forecast shows around 10% chance of rain. But if it does rain, Hamilton would certainly be the favourite.

I have to respond on this point. Just look at an earlier 9/11 for a salient example, 11 September 1973.

Retaliation and intervention is what powerful nations do, all the time, throughout history. Many of the conflicts and tensions in the world since WW2 have been due to US involvement overseas. But this is not a problem with
the US, it's just that the US is the most powerful nation at present. Go back a hundred years, it was the UK and France doing all this stuff. Go back further, the Spanish in Central and South America. Go back to the beginnings of recorded history, you'll find Assyria and Sumeria doing the same.