34 Comments
Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Given the current situation, we'll pretty soon all be foraging for and fighting over tulip bulbs as a food source.

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A little bored tonight so I did a little search and found a very interesting and quite funny article on the real tulip mania history (Smithsonian mag)

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“J’en ai marre de ce putain de Blukk Freuday.”

Am I the only one who read this in Father Jacks voice?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uovajICkI9g

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

When I first moved to France I thought they were all 'Smiths fans as they all kept going on about Johnny Marr.

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"Aha, the kraken awakes!"

https://youtu.be/viJcqGQC7y8

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

That would, as they say. be an ecumenical matter.

You know what, it's probably due for a rewatch this Christmas.

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

'Putain' is such a great all-purpose French cuss-word. I like to watch the subtitles for Engrenages and see how they'll translate the next one - everything from 'damn', 'bloody' all the way to 'fucking'. See also: 'con'.

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

That was a heck of a "fucking told you so".

Thoroughly enjoyed it, or shall I say 'orgasmable'?

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Dec 2, 2022·edited Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Whenever I read about crypto (aka whenever I read any Mr Dabbs), I'm always reminded of that geezer who threw away a hard drive with £200 million of bitcoin on it, and who wants the council to let him dig up a landfill to try and find it.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jan/14/man-newport-council-50m-helps-find-bitcoins-landfill-james-howells

Of course, it's not worth £200 million anymore...

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

You think you have problems. In the Unity game dev world Black Friday lasts for 23 days, almost immediately followed by the New Year.

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I'll tell you what. If Substack are a good indication of the currently quality of software designers/developers then I'm f...ing glad I'm retired.

This is just pathetic

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

>>they are now referred to generically as ‘earables’.

That cold feeling , when you are not sure if something is a joke or not...

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

IKR?

I just wish he'd stuck with it and called money "spendables".

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

One of the endearing things about these articles is that they make you think.

You think 'things can't be that bad', then Alistair comes up with another description of how things are actually worse than you thought.

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BTW I have just enabled Substack's chat feature for the first time, to see what it does. I think it's for letting readers comment on topics in AIFW without being bound to a specific post. Or something. Only available using the Substack app - Android and iOS.

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Hmm, perhaps Elon might invest in AIFW then. Even with his change left from buying Twatter.

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

You might regret that decision as you'll get nutters like me commenting on stuff.

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Melting icebergs?

That's one thing that has not been getting worse for the last 5 years, not that you'd know it if you only read The Guardian and the rest of them.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/11/27/sea-ice-mysteries/

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Thanks for the link to what Wikipedia calls "a blog promoting climate change denial". Not that you'd know if you only read Wattsupwiththat.

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Yeah, good point. I could have given a link to The Daily Sceptic where I first read it. Ahem, cough cough. I honestly think "denial" is probably a strong word, "scepticism" would be more appropriate. Wikipedia mentions George Monbiot, who seems to make ridiculously overblown climate predictions. I do try to read both sides of the argument, but I do have to roll my eyes a bit when I see the one sided coverage by the BBC and The Guardian.

Didn't The Reg used to have a climate sceptic at one point? (and a Wikipedia sceptic or two)

Anyway, Bon Week-end.

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Furby fifteen years ago? 22 years ago when I started my long strange trip in IT, Furby was the make believe receptionist at my first job... Sat right next to the phone.

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

What finally did for me was the Giving Cyber Black Tuesday where all those orgs that have spent Nov prepping for this orgy of spending now wanted me to spend for, to quote Smashie & Nicey,"charidee", where they'll donate a fractional percent of the profit

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Dec 2, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

In Australia I've watched with some disappointment as events like Halloween (barely a thing even 15 years ago) have been increasingly adopted here for no apparent reason other than it's something the Americans do, so apparently we have to as well. Black Friday sales make even less sense in our context - it's not as if we get Thanksgiving off - and yes, this year they apparently lasted somewhere from a week and a half to two weeks, so the Black Friday label makes no sense at all.

Then again maybe I'm just feeling bitter because my microwave died yesterday and I've missed the sales for replacing it.

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Hey, I'm an American (US) who likes Australia!

We drink Fosters (Its Australian for headache). We go to Outback Steakhouse. We get excited over the cool things that go on over there and we drool over your accent. I love Farscape and we would not have that without Australia so hats off!

Enjoy Halloween (or not), it's cool and Australia deserves cool things US owes you :-)

Oh yea black Friday is stupid if you wanna nuke the US over that no judgement from me!

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Although I can't quite get into Halloween in its current format as a celebration of dead things and spiders (why??) reproduced in black and orange plastic, I have absolutely no problem with it being an American import. AFAIC it just shows that Americans know how to have fun and can even derive it from grubby things at the shittiest time of the year. Props to them.

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It's Goth Xmas damn it!

Day of the Dead and all that.

The real why of course is fun :)

Though this year even my ubergoff GF didn't really bother with the home decor.

But one of our local pubs kits out their gig room in quite awesome animatronics.

They're semi-famous for it - if you search for "Black Bull Gateshead Halloween" you'll see some pics.

(any search engines, buy also FB)

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Dec 3, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Of Course, the Simpsons had the Commercialisation of holidays back in 1997, with “Love Day”.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eygsGzLX07A

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Dec 3, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

In Germany, mobile phones have always been called "Handies", with english pronounciacion. Nobody really knows where this came from, but it looks like the world is now finally dumbing down to Denglish standards...

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Dec 4, 2022Liked by Alistair Dabbs

Noddy never sang that. Roy Wood maybe ;-)

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At last! Two days.

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