Maximus Decimus
-
Posts
8,646 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
4
Posts posted by Maximus Decimus
-
-
Watched Okolie lose his belt to Billam-Smith last night, and boy what a frustrating fight. Okolie looked to be channeling his inner Henry Akinwande.
He got 2 points taken off for holding, and he suffered 3 knockdowns (of which only 1 was properly legit) yet somehow one referee had it 112-112!
Fair play to Okolie, he took it really well and wasn't bitter. I presumed he'd be fuming about the referee.
-
1
-
-
On 22/05/2023 at 23:39, Padge said:
James Watt is often talked of as the inventor of the steam engine, he wasn't, he took Newcombe's engine and improved it with the addition of a condenser, he like musicians, took others ideas and refined them. His invention was a steam engine with a separate condenser. Much as the 12 bar blues has been used many times with refinements.
My big fear with cases like this is that the improvement in technology could end up significantly stifling creativity.
As I stated earlier, when you come up with a melody or a chord sequence, not only is it impossible to know if you've subconsciously heard it before, but you can't know if it's been done before.
How long before we have technology that can instantly tell you if that melody or sequence already exists, however obscure, and therefore nips it in the bud before it's even started?
Imagine Paul McCartney wakes up with a tune in his head, plays it for an AI machine that tells him it's the same as a melody that reached number 22 in Belgium in 1957. One of the most well-known (yet one of my least favourite) Beatles songs is simply not pursued for fear of being branded a copy.
-
2 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:
The original USFL in the 1980’s did gain traction amongst American Football fans and I remember it well at the time.
It had some top players from the college football scene, interesting experimental rules (many later adopted by the NFL) and some of the franchises worked well.
Unfortunately for it Donald Trump who owned one of the franchises was keen to take the NFL to court and go head to head with the NFL which proved disastrous for the USFL in the end.
I seem to remember the judge awarded the USFL a single dollar in damages and the whole thing went bust although many of the top players and rule innovations found their way into the NFL.
I believe the main reason why springtime leagues are failing is the standard of play is just not high enough to convince fans to stick around for long enough. Also where to place the franchises is a big question.
Yeh I think the dream of a spring league is something that has just failed so often that it's hard to imagine it ever working.
I think culturally it just doesn't fit for a lot of Americans, they have a sporting calendar where different sports peak at different times. Football dominates autumn and winter.
The standard probably isn't bad and pretty much indistinguishable from NFL to the vast majority, but the knowledge that it is a B league will always affect perception.
IIRC the XFL was doing quite well before Covid struck. It was new so very tentative but I think they'd got some OK crowds. I don't think their return has been as successful.
-
Another good fight last night. Haney vs Loma which Haney won with a unanimous decision.
It was the usual controversial boxing decision, but aside from the 116-112 both judges had it 115-113 which certainly wasn't ridiculous. It felt very close throughout the bulk of fight, but after the 11th, where Loma looked like he could take him out, it seemed like Loma would win. However, rather than building on it in the 12th he lost that round comfortably.
I personally felt like Loma won, but could understand how someone could get to a 114-114 or even 115-113. The fact that it was unanimous doesn't feel right IMO, I don't see three separate people all scoring it for Haney.
I do think that there are problems with scoring in boxing. Without actually scoring it, it felt like the best moments were all Loma and that this isn't accounted for enough.
-
1
-
-
On 17/05/2023 at 00:50, bbfaz said:
If Sweden won, the Danish entry - which didn't make it to the final - should be a worldwide sensation.
It didn't sound great live, too much falsetto.
-
On 12/03/2023 at 11:34, Maximus Decimus said:
I heard Loreen's new effort for Sweden and it sounds exactly like a Eurovision winning song.
Just putting this out there...
I'm also going to put it out there that my first reaction to the British one was 'what a load of s***e' it did grow on me somewhat but most people would have been voting having heard it just the once.
-
11 hours ago, gingerjon said:
7,000 in the audience - I'm fairly certain some recent ones have been 20,000+?
Interesting, in these days of lots of staring at sports gambling and influencing, to note that bets were still being taken yesterday despite the juries having voted - and those jurors knowing how they voted - on Friday.
The concert and the week has been a lot of fun. As ever, they never seem to quite get it right with the process for choosing the actual winner.
They actually take bets on professional wrestling now... you'd have to be insane to bet on something like that. With Eurovision, there is still the element of public vote at least.
I'm OK with the way they choose the winner as I think it's a good balance, but I won't be surprised if they go to full public voting but announced by individual countries in future. My problem with this is that I think it would benefit novelty acts and result in countries winning for reasons other than having the best song much more common. Conchita Wurst was lucky because the song was a genuine belter, but with a purely public vote they could still win even if the song was one of the worst because of what they stood for.
If you take Ukraine out of it last year, who clearly won because of extreme circumstances, the winner of the televote was a very similar style song to the Finland one this year - upbeat, fast, a bit silly and quirky.
-
1
-
-
19 hours ago, YCKonstantine said:
Really like Denmarks song, was even on my “on repeat” playlist on Spotify (might still be) but unfortunately, his live vocals weren’t great.
Tbf it was a song that didn't seem suited to performing live in a large arena. Too much quiet falsetto.
-
1 hour ago, YCKonstantine said:
I'd say my top 3 are Finland, Norway (if she sings like she did in the Norwegian grand final and not in SF1), Slovenia.
Australia has everything that I should like in a song, and everyone online seemingly loves it, but it's just not doing it for me at the moment, perhaps it's the one chord chorus.
I know what you mean about the Aussie one.
My favourites are Sweden, Lithuania and Israel.
-
1 hour ago, gingerjon said:
Austria, Poland and Australia were all decent. None of the rest really stood out in my half-paying-attention way. Overall, didn't seem as enjoyable as Tuesday's.
The UK's song is alright but I think it stands more than a chance of just merging into the mush of songs that sound more or less like that.
Should be fun on Saturday night.
I think there was a bit of disappointment around with how the UK one sounded live. Hopefully, she performs better the next two nights.
My sisters are off to the show tonight (not jealous at all) so I'll be able to report back on how well it sounds.
-
1
-
-
2 hours ago, Wolford6 said:
Apparently, the UK's entry hates Britain and has applied for a German passport.
Sounds like a classic example of where social media complicates things.
It's easy to say stuff like that when you're in a bubble of likeminded people who will pat you on the back.
It suddenly becomes a problem when the world can look at your past opinions and you suddenly need the support of the people you were slagging off.
Will it make her a hypocrite when she's sat there waving flags and all that? Yes but not probably more than anyone else. I'm quite proud to be British, as I see it as entirely different from supporting the government, the royal family or football hooligans. Did I say anti-British stuff when I was younger? Almost certainly.
-
1
-
-
I can't believe nobody has mentioned Ireland's effort.
A decent song but an odd performance where the main singer looked all over the place. I'm not sure if he was nervous or his voice had gone but he kept pulling away from the mike. He looked like a kid playing what he thinks a rockstar should be.
That's without even mentioning the rather serious case of moose knuckle
.
-
6 hours ago, gingerjon said:
Some good examples in this thread:
The best line in this is the one saying there are only 12 notes so we should be amazed we've got this far!
-
On 01/05/2023 at 17:37, Futtocks said:
I believe the Swedish group Rednex were so incensed by the note-for-note rip-off of their #1 hit Cotton Eye Joe that they sued themselves over the follow-up single Pop in an Oak.
Funny the missus was watching the Ed Sheeran thing last night and he was showing a song he'd written to his wife, and I said he should sue himself.
I personally hate these things. As someone who has written songs, it's impossible to know who you've been influenced by. The process of coming up with a melody or a chord structure is one where you can never know if it's been used before.
It's like being sued for writing a wedding speech and it being too similar to somebody else's, when there are only so many ways of saying the same thing. Songs are similar, there are only a finite number of tunes.
-
6 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:
Garcia has to take a knee after creasing under a well timed body shot by Davis in the 7th and the fight is over as the ref waves it off.
Wasn’t a spectacular finish by any means just a straight left really sunk in.
Davis improves to 29-0.
He always looked the more likely. Garcia was getting back into it a bit, but you always felt like Davis was able to take his shots easy enough and at some point was going to catch him clean.
I must say DAZN works well for me over here. No more having to record it. Just wake up and log onto my phone a bit like Netflix.
-
1
-
-
22 minutes ago, DavidM said:
Didn’t see it but I was surprised , Zhang looked pretty limited when I saw him but I guess so has Big Joe but he’s granite tough and just got through on bullying workrate . I’ll try it find it somewhere to watch
Zhang is really quite quick and clearly has power. He could be a problem for anyone I reckon. Wilder would be able to catch him easy enough, but other fighters would find it hard.
The time before I saw him, he gassed out and it was one of the worst type HW fights where they're out of shape and leaning on each other. Apparently his kidney failed or something.
-
47 minutes ago, Futtocks said:
Maybe the potential to attract bigger sponsorships by pretending to be more successful than they are is worth taking a tax hit in the short term? I dunno.
Also, some sports just can't bring themselves to admit that things aren't totally rosy. See the increasingly common non-reporting of Super Rugby attendances except when a decent crowd is achieved, for instance.
Non-reporting is slightly different, as I'm sure they have to give it to the taxman.
With clearly falsifying numbers or at least making them look better (by including all ST holders for instance regardless of attending) wouldn't it cost quite a lot if you did it a lot?
I might be 100% wrong, maybe they have to do nothing of the sort, and I've got the wrong end of the stick. After all, wouldn't it constitute fraud if they were caught openly lying? I'm sure those figures are used for sponsorships etc.
I suspect that whether they need to be legally declared or not, that they include all sorts of things like ST holders and free tickets given out but not taken up.
After all, with the quality of camera phones now it only takes someone with far too much time on their hands to actually count the number...
-
Wow Joyce got totally dominated by Zhang. I remember seeing Zhang a few years ago and thinking he was totally rubbish but he looked really good last night.
Joyce was exposed as usual but wasn't able to grind his opponent down. I do think without the eye he was starting to get to Zhang by his sheer constant pressure.
A lot has been made that Joyce was ahead on the cards and it does seem ridiculous and home-town judges. However, it comes down to the old pressure vs effective shots argument. In the last 4 rounds, Joyce had started to outland Zhang.
Personally though, I much prefer giving the round to the boxer who gets the cleaner, more effective shots off. In some of those rounds, Joyce didn't catch him properly once, whereas Zhang rocked his head right back.
-
To be fair, it looks to be a classic example of a double-header. There are many sports that report the crowds this way.
I went to the opening game of the 2013 World Cup between England and Australia and there were 43,000 or so there. I stayed for the following Wales-Italy game and it is generous to say 10,000 were still there. On this forum, I was in the minority for arguing that they shouldn't both be counted as 43,000 when it comes to the average.
Most sports exaggerate, but I've never understood the legality of it as I thought it was linked to tax. I saw an A-league game recently that was announced as 3,300 and no lie 1,000 was a generous figure. However, surely if it was about tax that would cost them money?
-
17 hours ago, DavidM said:
I think the Bud Crawford - Spence fight is going to be made which would be huge
Yeh that was another I thought wouldn't happen.
-
18 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:
Would still be a good fight.
Of course I'd be interested. People seem to get that Fury doesn't look great against lower opposition but that can't apply to AJ.
With the state of modern boxing, I'd just be happy to see it. At one point it seemed like it was destined to happen but now I'm doubtful it'll ever happen.
One positive on that front is the upcoming Davis vs Garcia fight. Finally two undefeated fighters with a lot to lose putting it all on the line.
-
1
-
-
On 01/04/2023 at 18:05, Click said:
Just started watching the undercard for the Joshua fight - looks and sounds like about 100 people there max right now.
In my experience, people are only really into the main event in any significant numbers.
It was a decent fight, but AJ didn't look great. Fury will probably go for him now.
-
I heard Loreen's new effort for Sweden and it sounds exactly like a Eurovision winning song.
-
29 minutes ago, Gerrumonside ref said:
I will not be watching
I wouldn't buy it in a million years. I am vaguely interested though.
The TV Thread
in Any Other Business / Any Other Sports
Posted
Anyone watch Succession? The finale was last night and I'm a little gutted it's over.