Quite enjoyable lunchtime watch.
1 Like
Setting aside the whole in-the-charidee-shop thang, that’s two contrasting experiences, which makes me think that ebay and Amazon’s prices are algorithm driven. Suspiciously frequently the thing I look at on one is a penny less on the next…
Drunkenly spaffed £40 on Discogs last night - I daren’t open the confirmation emails…
Dynamic pricing software has been around for years.
I was using it for a charity selling books and other media on Amazon, Ebay (and at that time) Play, over 10 years ago.
In a simplified version you specified what competition you wanted to include (and exclude) and decided whether you wanted to price in the median of that group, equal the lowest or undercut the competition.
The software then compared the price of your entire inventory every hour and adjusted the price accordingly across all platforms.
The price could change multiple times a day. If there was a cheap outlier that got sold everyone put their price up.
Rapidly stopped hearing the drone of mouthsturbation and immersed in the film segment: heavy nostalgia trip 
1 Like
I don’t remember much about my grandfather, he died when I was about 10/11 years old. I do remember a very quiet man, a tad henpecked who kept himself to himself and cannot remember having any kind of conversation with him. He took me on a walk once, a long one and apart from the odd question didn’t speak to me during the couple of hours we were out.
Rummaging through old family artifacts I have found his World War 1 service medals and a postcard from Germany dated 14/1/1918. The postcard is in his handwriting, it is official and states his name, rank, Regiment and service number, it also states that he is a prisoner of war. No further details are on the postcard as to where he was or any circumstances of his capture or treatment. The National Archives have been a boon as they have the daily war diary of his battalion/regiment available for download for the period of service 1917/1918. My grandfather through digging a little deeper than family folklore, I found, was in the trenches at the Second Battle of Passendaele, he was an infantryman manning a machine gun post when the Germans advanced to retake taken ground. The order had been given to withdraw due to the German advance ( which at most was 50 yards), he didn’t receive the command and was soon surrounded by pointy hats and pointy bayonets, taken prisoner and transported/marched to a pow camp. As he wouldn’t speak about his experiences, I probably know more about his service than anyone in the family, all my aunts and uncles are deceased and back in the day there wasn’t the internet or historically accurate books available. It’s a shame, to think that this smallish man with slightly bowed legs who rarely spoke wasn’t really known by his family, what he’d achieved or what trauma he’d experienced. why his health was poor and why he suffered shortage of breath (mustard gas ?). The more I research the sadder I feel and yet hold him in such high esteem, even though I didn’t really know him or remember him with great accuracy. I am proud to have known him though, however little and my admiration those that fought in Flanders fields is increasing all the time that I research the ‘Lions led by Donkeys’. I’m so sorry I didn’t know him better.
19 Likes
Until my parents generation, most of the British and German sides of my family were military men - setting aside the marvellous confusion that may have caused, which is further exacerbated by the German lot being Jewish as well, those I knew and spoke with never, ever discussed the two world wars, even their wives and families wouldn’t. They all wanted to forget, they all wanted to move-on, whatever happened, whatever they did, it didn’t define them, it wasn’t who they were at-all.
You also have to try to understand the profoundly different mindset of those generations: men didn’t have emotions, they couldn’t be expressed, or even considered. You existed, you coped, you did, you kept moving-forward until the grave swallowed you up and the next generation took over.
They came from a world that knew death much better than we do: you could die from a pimple on your arse, no antibiotics, vaccination just finding its feet, no NHS, a lot less education, desperately dangerous, dirty, physically shattering work was the norm, an empire spanned the globe and its riches poured-in - but They only got to die for it…
It’s so hard for our generation to grasp how utterly different their world was, never mind our children and grandchildren. This is why I’m prone to rail against modern culture’s empty, futile attempts to rewrite history by hiding away the spoils of empire and oppression and ‘apologising’ for what was done: those affected are dead-and-gone, their children, their grand-children too, their great-grandchildren even, all long-gone from this world… We mustn’t forget, we mustn’t make empty gestures in the hope we can put a lid on it all - we must work to ensure no-one forgets what came before, that no-one suffers now, and no-one makes the same mistakes again.
Oops, rant.
7 Likes
You may have read this but if not it’s worth reading - a remarkable book
I couldn’t find out about my what my Grandpa went through in WWII as he never left any details and only ever spoke briefly to me about it once.
1 Like
Ordered. Suspect it’s a harrowing read.
Extraordinarily so Paul. It’s so much more than just a historical account of the battle so I won’t spoil it but let me know what you think of it when you’ve read it.
1 Like
We visited Passchendaele in 2016 as part of a WW1 centenary trip to understand Gill’s Grandad’s diary of his Somme experiences and my Grandad’s brother’s eventual demise being blown up at Passchendaele in 1917 having started his war in Gallipoli before working his way up through France via the Somme to Flanders. Both the Somme & Flanders were fascinating, moving and infuriating in equal measure and either site is well worth a visit particularly if you have some family connection.
5 Likes
At the moment I’m reading Passendaele in perspective and your book is next on the list. At the moment I’m trying to make sense out of nonsense, I’m finding it very difficult to understand Haigh and his disregard for human life and his power of persuasion toward politicians and senior military figures. A tragedy for both sides in the conflict.
It’s so far beyond our comprehension I don’t think there is any understanding it tbh.
2 Likes
Why would they say A man and a teenage girl have been found dead at a beauty spot when it turns out they were the same age.
Just looks like the beeb resorting to the usual scum or daily fail clickbait
At a guess 19 and 17, one legally an adult, the other not.
Although I agree, the wording immediately struck me as being odd too.
Looks like someone at the beeb thought the same as it’s now changed to
Teenage pair found dead at Dorset beauty spot
Two teenagers have been found dead at a beauty spot.
1 Like
This could go well…
3 Likes
As if China doesn’t have all the blueprints already 
1 Like
3 Likes
Wasn’t the UK plane (recently salvaged) that fell off a carrier in the Med also an F35? Is there something wrong with them?
1 Like
I blame the pilots, nothing commissioned by a US or UK govt would ever go wrong.
2 Likes