GDS is one area the government has done really well.

South Africa’s sports minister has said his nation was “being made to look like fools” after its football team was delayed travelling to Mexico ahead of the World Cup due to visa issues.

Gayton McKenzie demanded an explanation from South Africa’s football association (Safa) as to why this had happened, adding: “Action must be taken against those responsible for this mess.”

Safa admitted the team had “experienced challenges regarding visas for some players and officials” but did not give further details.

McKenzie later confirmed all the players had received permission to travel and would be leaving for the international tournament on Monday.

National broadcaster SABC described what happened as an “administrative bungle”.

The team, nicknamed Bafana Bafana, are due to face Jamaica in a friendly in Mexico on Friday.

They will then play in the World Cup opening match against Mexico, which is co-hosting the competition alongside the US and Canada, on 11 June.

“This Safa travel & visa debacle is embarrassing & grossly unfair towards the players & coaching staff,” McKenzie had written on X earlier on Sunday.

Shortly after the minister’s comments, a brief statement from Safa said it was “working around the clock to ensure that the team travels to Mexico City as soon as possible ahead of the opening match”.

Efforts were made on Sunday to get the team US visas, according to South African news site TimesLive.

The Bafana Bafana squad and staff need permission to enter the US as they play their second World Cup game against the Czech Republic in Atlanta, in the US state of Georgia.

The government’s international relations department was also involved.

It seems that the efforts paid off, with McKenzie saying on Sunday evening that a chartered flight would be leaving on Monday with all the players onboard.

However visas had not yet been secured for the “assistant coach, team doctor, head of security and one analyst”, he said.

South Africa is one of 10 African nations taking part in the expanded 48-team World Cup.

The game against Jamaica will be Bafana Bafana’s last chance to get ready for the tournament, which they last appeared at when South Africa hosted the finals in 2010.

Their final home match on Friday - a 0-0 draw against Nicaragua that included a missed South African penalty - was described in some reports as “disappointing” and extended their winless run to four games.

I can’t seem to login to the root user on two different mariadb databases to make those changes so must be doing something wrong

Ah, taking a play out of the ol’ “City Of London” book!

Yeah it blew my mind when a few times I was called black in Australia when I am of Indian heritage. One even made a joke about my penis being larger!

In Britain, Asian means someone from Indian/Pakistani part of area of Asia, whereas in North America and Australia it means Chinese/Japanese parts of Asia.

Others here have covered great points, especially that it is a physical loudness and presence.

I would add that everyone tends to be very knowledgeable about US culture, history, geography, politics etc from TV, films and news but with the “typical Americans” you are talking about, they know almost nothing about other countries or cultures. They might know very high level things like what Buckingham Palace is where the King lives but not much beyond that. The worst of the stereotype just don’t care and don’t show an interest in learning anything. It’s almost like a tick box to see certain things and then that’s their holiday done.

Slow an interest and curiosity and you’ll be fine. Look at what the locals are doing and try to copy them. If you go to London, everyone will stand on the right on escalators. Anybody with eyes can see that! Yet you’ll find so many people don’t look or care so get in the way.

Also, all countries have stereotypes that apply to most people but not everyone - the British are horrible binge drinkers who go for cheap beers in the sun. Im not like that but can certainly agree with the sentiment after seeing Brits abroad! Just sitting back and noticing goes a long way.

Shopping and service culture is very different. Most retail staff don’t have to welcome everyone, make small talk, fake an interest or have to stand up all day at a checkout to not be lazy. Restaurant staff often seem “rude” compared to America but in reality they’re just trying to do their job and we don’t always want the American style customer service. I’ll ask if I need help!

Reminds me when a PCSO (UK police community support officer) knocked on my window and told me off for driving while on my phone. I was literally just scratching my ear. Also, I had managed to forget my phone at home when having to visit a clients office and didn’t have time to go back and get it - I was in the car grabbing a quick lunch. I was already annoyed with myself anyway so was livid after that. Told them you shouldn’t go around accusing people of things unless you can actually see it. They just doubled down and walked off without apologising or anything.

One more lane, one more car park - that will fix all the problems!

Influence is far more valuable than a public veto. They get full access to laws before they are passed and access to senior politicians through things like the privy council.

This leads to several carve out of laws including tenant protection laws, human rights/discrimination laws, environmental laws etc.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/14/queen-immunity-british-laws-private-property

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/feb/09/prince-charles-vetted-laws-that-stop-his-tenants-buying-their-homes

A Karen, I kid you not. She had been working at a place for decades in Treasury meaning she put in payments. The power went to her fucking head and walked around like she was the most important person at the company but in reality made the whole process as shitty and ridiculous as possible.

In the UK you need a sort code, amount number and reference to make a domestic payment but she asked for all this extra stuff like bank name, address etc. She challenged a bank name because her system said it was different, which I knew to be wrong but also completely irrelevant. It was for our tax authority for the companies corporate tax payment, so pretty important to make on time. Sent her the link to their website with the details to show it’s correct. Thought it should be the end.

It took hours, fucking hours, of back and forth bullshit and extra random changes to the form. She finally settled on changing the bank name on the form to “government account” which is just complete nonsense. I had to get the form signed again by two others including the Finance Director. Waste of everybody’s time and she pulled this shit every 3 months.

For fucks sake, include the country unless it’s a well known major place.

Awesome idea then, I’ll have to kook into it.

Just to clarify for my simple brain - vps1 has just 80/443 open, vps2 just has a wireguard port open (51825 or whichever). Vps2 has no domain pointing to it’s public IP, vps has your domain pointing to it. Vps1 and home server have wireguard configs pointing to the vps2 public IP, so punch through automatically. Is that all correct?

I think I have the same setup but with vps1 + 2 combined but that means it’s public IP is easily found by the domain (one includes a public business website) and has WG ports open (although my understanding is this in itself is not an issue as WG gives no reply)

Have you opened an SSH port on both vps1 and vps2 for backup or happy to rely on wireguard? Thinking about it, you could open up the port on the vps but use the providers firewall to block the port - if needed can login to their site, open the port and then SSH in - would this work? They have KVMs for emergencies but just trying to think of worst case scenarios.

Good point, Romm can integrate well with MuOS, Playnite and other client side software you and others can install onto their actual devices. I’ve used Playnite on my devices to manage the emulator side and download the ROMs from the ROMs server.

In theory, you could also try a sunshine server and moonshine client to steam the games from you’re server but guessing it would only work well over a local network, not over the internet to friends

It’s great to have options! Never heard of this one so will check it out too. That’s part of the fun isn’t it haha

Check out Romm. Not every romm can be streamed but think it meets your needs.

Convinced my mum to splash out on an Amstrad Emailer. It looked really cool and could store your phonation, and had emails.

3 months later, my Dad is checking the landline phone bill which is expensive for some reason. Turns out the Amstrad phones a premium rate phone lime every night. Managed to switch it off but then the whole thing stopped working saying it needs to do that to work.

Nowhere did they mention this, or at least it was not clear to both of us. Absolutely dodgy fuckers.

Interesting point, I would probably do the same without thinking. I guess as a parent the most important thing to me is my children and to improve the world for all children so it’s better than it is/was for me. They don’t have a voice, don’t have a voice and don’t really have a choice of transport like adults do so this could be more impactful for them than any other group. Yes of course it’ll help adults too and that is important. It’s just such a natural thing to say without thinking

You might be thinking of Germany where cash is still preferred by a large part of the population?

UK here too and agree with the everything but the national insurance part is a common misconception. The amount you pay in national insurance has no direct tie to benefits or the nhs, and has not been connected for a long time.

All national taxes go into a big pot which the government allocates any way it wants in the budget. For example, the recent class 1 employers national insurance rate increase from 13.8% to 15% does not mean that increase in funding goes directly to the NHS.

The amount of years that you paid national insurance for in your life does effect the amount of pension you received. Once you’ve worked x number of years, you receive the full pension available. The amount you paid has no impact. In fact, you just have to have been paid a salary of the lower threshold, which means technically you don’t pay any national insurance, for that year to be marked as qualifying. Lots of owner managed business pay themselves salary of the lower threshold (£6.5k), then pay the rest in dividends - results in them meeting the pension eligibility for that year, pays no national insurance, pays no income tax, and then pays the lower income tax rate for dividends.

Fun fact, once you hit the legal retirement age, you stop paying national insurance even if you carry on working. This makes it a regressive tax!

Successive governments have not made this clear because it is politically easier to raise national insurance rates (“helping the NHS”) than income taxes, even though income tax is a more progressive tax and it all goes to the same pot.