I've gone for Aston Villa to get the draw against Chelsea to try, and recoup some of my money I lost on the West Ham, and the Tottenham game, I wasn't expecting Spurs to get the result they did. I swear, Tottenham only ever turn up against us, and then go ship points to lesser teams. So, I was counting on that this time around.

Honestly, I was thinking about this a few weeks ago. Betting on Zaha getting sent off particularly in games against the likes of Sterling etc is a decent pick. Since, he is brilliant at winding opponents up, although in the process he usually gets himself wound up too. Great player, but cant be a bit of a liability sometimes.

December,  in particular Christmas is one of my favourite times of the year, however its an absolute nightmare I have to wait so long without watching MMA. You just get so used to watching is every weekend, and occasionally missing a weekend, that I kind of feel lost now.

Luckily, the hype of some of the fights coming up has still got me in good spirits. Particularly looking forward to the Izzy fight. I've said it before, but Whittaker has probably the best chance in the division to hurt, and beat Izzy. At least right now, obviously Alex Pereira being in the UFC now might change things up a little, but I think his lack of grappling might be a problem. Izzy is at least a little more accustomed to it, and might be able to make the changes necessary to put Alex out of his comfort zone.

Nadolig Llawen! Merry Christmas!

Happy holidays. Remember, that Bitcoin currently is at a discount price going into 2022, so make sure you get in on the action!

I thought so too, appropriate use of a bump .

I'm conflicted about this, I don't want to see the season cancelled or even postponed anymore than the next fan, but it might be the right decision considering the amount of games that are getting postponed anyway. Could potentially cause some unfair match ups.

I'd like to see just extending the season, fix the congestion issue in January, and then put players into "bubbles" as they did before. Then, set a rule if there's more than x amount of covid positives, then the game is postponed as a last resort.

Managers should probably be expected to give their players some sort of punishment for breaching Covid rules too. I'm also obviously getting prepared to watch the rest of the season from TV without any fans, since that's probably the common sense thing to do.

Its a catch 22. Basically, the players get a little bit more rest after playing recently, although we rested players in the last cup game with this game in mind. Then, Robertson now is suspended for more important games, he wouldn't have been a massive miss against Leeds, with Kostas being a decent enough replacement, and would have probably enjoyed that game against Leeds. I believe he misses the Chelsea game now which could be crucial if we want to challenge for the title.

Though, judging by their recent form I think it'll be between Liverpool, and Manchester City depending on the injuries, and Covid. What I don't get is one of the teams on boxing day apparently have 5 players out because of Covid, but were rejected their request to postpone the game, which doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to me considering several others have been postponed.

I can't for the life of me remember what team it was though.

Cash is, and will forever be the tool for tax evaders. Even if Bitcoin became the dominant currency, cash if still in existence would be used by criminals since there's no recorded record of it exchanging hands, unlike Bitcoin.

This isn't true in the slightest. If the governments wanted to brush up on their tax evasion detection via cryptocurrency it would be much easier for them than cash. Cash is literally the way to tax evade if you really wanted too since there's no public ledger. If you tax evade via cryptocurrnecy you're doing it knowingly leaving a trace. The criticism that Bitcoin gets for tax evasion is unjust. Its the people who use it, and cash that are tax evading, not Bitcoin or cash. I declare what I earn with Bitcoin just as I do with fiat, there's no difference since tax has to be declared by the person with the assets or via an accountant of theirs. The government expects that the individual declares it, Bitcoin or cash is not responsible for an individuals actions.

Cryptocurrency while sometimes being a little confusing, and adds a little more complexity to declaring the tax, well at least in the earlier days. Still, is expected to be declared by the government. It's the person who decides to declare it or not.

I've never really understood the need to tax evade especially when your stinking rich already, although I must say the tax over here in the UK at least goes to something I'm quite passionate about e.g the National Health Service (NHS which I like that my tax contributes to keeping it running.

Athletes aren't always healthy year around, quite a few MMA fighters for example live quite the life outside of camps. Its really not a big deal, Logan Paul isn't a real professional fighter, at least in the same way Mike Tyson was. Mike also didn't exactly live the cleanest life possible when he was fighting. Nutrition, and fitness needs to be worked on leading up to the fight, but that's why fighters have training camps.

Its unlikely that this exhibition is anything more than a show between the two. I very much doubt any of them will be going for a knockout. We've seen it in previous exhibition fights with Logan Paul, there wasn't any serious punches thrown, quite a bit of hugging. The only objective is to collect the paycheck, and entertain the fans without causing any serious damage to either fighter. However, even if it was a proper fight, with both looking to knock each other out, Logan Paul's lifestyle months before the fight isn't going to have drastic effects, unless he truly is abusing his body so much. The odd night out isn't a big deal, and is normal for athletes.

Most attacks aren't very sophisticated, though depending on the type of person you're receiving spam emails or misleading information could potentially compromise your security. Though, I think most people with common sense know the telltale signs these days, and the users that would fall for this type of spam, would likely be compromised in another way even if they didn't expose their email address.

Email addresses were made to send, and receive information over the internet, so yeah email addresses were actually designed to be revealed to other people. Of course, if you care about privacy, and not exposing your email to every Tom, Dick, and Harry it's probably best to hide it.

I do agree with your last statement though, emails were originally designed to be shared among friends, obviously with how things have progressed with the internet, they've become so much more than that, and therefore its common these days to put your email on your website etc.

It doesn't take much research into his Twitter profile to determine that he trolls a lot, and not just about cryptocurrencies. The guy enjoys it, and the reason he enjoys it is because he gets attention from it. Elon Musk's words to a lot of people mean a lot because hes perceived to be a smart guy, genius by some because of that he enjoys the sort of authority that comes with that.

I definitely can't criticize him on his accomplishments, but I'm also not looking for his head because hes said a few things that could be seen as detrimental to Bitcoin. People have opinions, it just so happens this one has millions of followers who take every word he says seriously.

Yeah, as others have been saying a company has to have a way of unsubscribing from emails, otherwise they're in breach of the law. So, while I understand you might be angry about it, there is a way of unsubscribing. If you made them aware of your issues, and they didn't manually do it, I can understand your frustration, but you also have the option on every email that they send. They should have probably explained that better, but just unsubscribe, if they continue to send emails after you've unsubscribed you can report them, though I don't think this will be an issue. Stake has been operating for a long time now here, and while there are complaints the majority of users experience is positive (You know, as positive as it can be losing money ).

I can't exactly tell from your screenshot if you tried to unsubscribe yourself via the self exclusion or you just contacted them bringing up the issue of receiving the emails?

It would only be a problem if the OP tried to unsubscribe to their emails, but they either didn't allow it or continued sending. The OP always had the option to stop these emails themselves, despite letting Stake know about their issues, without being explicitly told they don't want to receive anything further from them, they aren't going to assume that's the case.

If OP tried unsubscribing, and it didn't work or they continued to doing it they would have a decent case, and would likely win it. Usually, companies avoid the drama though, and offer benefits. For example, I know someone who was offered gift cards, but refused, and asked them to sort out the issue, and donate to a charity instead.

Yeah, that's the angle I was going for. Punish Yan for the obvious illegal strike, probably by stripping him of the belt i.e vacating it, but don't give it to Aljo. Then setup a rematch between the two for the belt again. I think that's the fairest, since Aljo didn't win that belt, and Yan dealt a fight ending illegal blow.

This approach will likely stop fighters faking or you know not faking, but playing up to the extent of the injury to get the win. We've seen it a few times with eye pokes, the fighter basically asks if the fight finishes will it still count, and the referee usually tells them you can't ask that. So, while I'm definitely not accusing Aljo of that, I believe there has been other instances of this, and I think all fights should probably go down to a no contest. I guess, the flipside is fighters could potentially try an illegal blow if they're losing so bad to get the fight as a no contest rather than a loss. Difficult situation really with that, but absolutely a belt shouldn't be won via a disqualification it just feels wrong.

I'm waiting until an hour before most kick off, since I expect more matches on boxing day will be postponed. Annoying that it happened, since I quite fancied us against Leeds considering their run of form right now, might have been able to stat pad, and get some nice bonuses by going for Liverpool at half time, and at the end of the match without conceding. I actually quite fancied Wolves that also got postponed too.

Quite confident against Leicester after watching most of our first time out, and still beating them on pens. Obviously, wasn't pretty at times, but I thought when the more experienced players came on we looked much better. Specifically, Konate really shored up the defense.

Its been said a few times now, but there being no centralised figure that owns or runs Bitcoin, means that employment would have to be a community run scheme, which seems unlikely. Instead, the better alternative would be funding further education to Bitcoin users to improve their security, and privacy knowledge.

The thing is, not only would it be an expensive endeavor, but it would likely be ineffective to some degree, if Bitcoin has a vulnerability, its usually patched out fairly quickly because we have Bitcoin developers who are dedicating their time for free. If we wanted more people involved, which I believe at this point is unnecessary, we would either need to advertise for people to potentially volunteer like the existing developers or hire them through a community led fund. However, the latter introduces a whole lot of problems, and would likely be detrimental to the development of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is open sourced, people contribute because they care about it, not because they're being paid to do so.

Bitcoin is pretty secure, there's been no major issues for a while, and when there has been they're usually patched out quickly. What you're talking about is the fact that companies such as exchanges should be employing security experts to secure their own platform, which you would be correct, they should be doing that, and I believe most of them do have a cybersecurity department. Although, we can't control what these companies do, the only thing we can control is who we used as an exchange or service just like fiat.

Short term it would probably cause certain investors to panic, however it all likelihood Bitcoin would recover weeks to a few months after, and the world would continue to go around. The thing is, Bitcoin was designed not to rely on a central figure, and the reason people would panic would be because they are too used to a centralised system, and would panic of Satoshi's intentions. Although, really if they do or don't come back in the grand scheme of things it matters not.

I wouldn't expect anything different from the Independent, always creating stories out of nothing, and pushing some sort of narrative. Whoever's address it's I think we can safely ignore the speculation from the Independant, as they're not going to be the ones which break the news if it was proven to be Satoshi (which it won't).

The thing is with VAR its not new, at least in other sports. Rugby has been using it successfully for years, and their implementation on it is much better than the ones in Football. In fact, I would argue that VAR is fundamentally flawed in its current implementation, and its not just the people that are using it.

I'm also not a big fan of the recent changes to handballs, for example Salah the other day handballed it in the build up, however because he didn't score off the handball, and wasn't looking to handle it intentionally, the goal was given because a team mate scored off of his pass. Now, I'm not a big fan of that, personally I think a handball is a handball even if unintentional, if it changes the direction of the ball, I think that should be called. If it brushes the hand, or doesn't really effect the projection of the ball, then leave it go. However, I do think that handball slightly played into our benefit on the day. Obviously, I wasn't complaining at the time as I wanted the goal to stand, but on review it probably shouldn't have if it wasn't for this new rule, which I don't agree with at all.

Anyway, I say we bring in a similar implementation to rugby, especially giving the refs mics, broadcasting the decision making process to the fans, and having clear, and decisive rules because currently what we're having is instances where as a fan I don't actually know what will be called, and judging by the commentators they don't either. I get that its the interpretation of the refs, but the problem is their decisions significantly effect teams in the league, and not just that particular game.

I think the big misconception is; Decentralisation is always a good thing, while in certain situations decentralisation could potentially cause more issues than its worth. Personally, I'm not bothered to some extent on compromising in certain aspects, as long as my main principles are catered for; security, privacy, and freedom. At the moment, there are ways around ISP's being dicks, and while they have definitely been working on preventing that in recent times, they haven't succeeded.

I suspect something like the Tor Project will be incorporated in many countries internet providers once people start to realise the freedom they could have. It'll only take a few large scale events to make it happen, but it will likely happen. Probably, being spawned due to the fact that governments will be looking to restrict their populations more so in the future, and with the evolving technology retaining your privacy will likely become a thing of the past. That'll be the time when people start looking for alternatives.

China is probably one of the more public governments on restricting their population, but that's by no means as effective as they like to admit.  

I've said it before, but I don't actually think Elon is pro Doge or anything. This to me again comes off as a sort of tongue in cheek remark. We know that Elon Musk likes to troll on Twitter, and to me this just seems like subtle trolling. Elon Musk will know what Doge is, and he'll know why it doesn't stand up to Bitcoin at the moment. He definitely isn't stupid, despite the consensus around here.

Besides, it doesn't really matter what he thinks. I do believe he influenced the market a little bit with the drama initially surrounding Tesla, and him. However, I think as time goes on people are more aware of his trolling nature, and the fact that what he says doesn't really mean a lot in the grand scheme of things for Bitcoin.

There can be different meanings to it, depending on what your interpretation of it is. I've always seen it as; Bitcoin is more valuable than the current exchange rate suggests, so I treat the current price of Bitcoin differently to its value. At the moment, I consider my Bitcoin invaluable, and not something I routinely use as a currency. Whereas, those that look at the price of Bitcoin regularly are more likely either withdrawing, and depositing frequently, but don't have much of a long term outlook on it.

The other interperation is; some people consider Bitcoin a currency, and are a little bit over zealous in my opinion, on being adamant that Bitcoin shouldn't be compared to other currencies, because it's own currency. Having that point of view is fine, but not one I'm particularly keen on. Most assets, and currencies are compared with others, even ones which are vastly different; gold etc.

Basically. Some investors are particularly good at generating a profit in the short term, and while Bitcoin is at its most volatile its probably a good idea to do frequent trading if your good at predicting the market.

I've also taken Bitcoin out when I've needed a little bit of a boost in fiat, at the moment instead of using Bitcoin as a currency, I'm mainly storing my wealth in it, and then hoping it continues to appreciate in price down the line.

LoyceV hits the nail on the head with point three of their list for me (thanks for the theymos link, I've been was looking for that not too long ago). Not every project is going to have that kind of money to initially launch, it's by no means a requirement that a project has to have money in the first place. Yeah, it clearly helps for things like marketing, and developers. However, there's been numerous low budgets launches that have at least been successfully initially. So, despite many projects being a scam, that doesn't mean all projects intend to scam, and by imposing some sort of deposit to post an announcement, you're effectively removing the freedom to post their own ideas, and projects.  

Personally, I would prefer education about the telltale signs of a project which might be looking to scam, while allowing everyone the ability to present their ideas.

While Google searches are definitely enough in most instances, I'd recommend using search operators to narrow down the searches, it'll make the search engine much better, and refined to what your looking for. The majority of people are using Google or any search engine for that matter inefficiently, whereas introducing search operators while potentially time consuming learning, will speed up the process for more complicated searches. "Site:" for example is one I use pretty much everyday, you can also exclude sites which is a fantastic way of removing plagiarized posts from here in the search results.

However, if that fails most plagiarism checkers are okay, some more complex cases are definitely missed, however they are decent if you can't figure out search operators.